


Some Hearts Are Gallows (I'm Not Here For Hanging Around)

by blindlyseeking



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bullets Era, Early Days, F/F, Genderswap, Van Days, girlverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindlyseeking/pseuds/blindlyseeking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Chemical Romance. The name even had that vibe to it: we’re going to conquer the motherfucking universe. It was like The Beatles or Bikini Kill. It was a name that pinned you against a wall and said, “You better remember me.” And she is a part of it. </p><p>Gina, Michelle, Rae, Maddy, and Frankie are just getting their new band off the ground. The girls are leaving Jersey for the first time on tour. But Frankie has been head over heels for Gina since day one and in a blur of autumn, Polaroids, house parties, whiskey sours, car rides, and cassette tapes 2002 becomes the year that change everything.</p><p>Playlist HERE: http://8tracks.com/blindlyseeking/i-fell-for-you-like-a-ton-of-bricks-i-did-i-did-i-know-i-did</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Hearts Are Gallows (I'm Not Here For Hanging Around)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my God! Girlverse! I've been obsessing over MCR as girls for the longest time so I finally got my shit together and wrote a fic for it. I'm updating both my fics at once so try to bear with me if there are long pauses between updates (but there shouldn't be).
> 
> The title comes from "We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep The Diner" by The Gaslight Anthem

Chapter 1

            It takes a very specific kind of person to look a place called Big Daddy’s and the people in front of her – the losers, the goths, the drug dealers, the convenience store workers, the adrenaline junkies, the perpetual suburbanites – and think words like _family_ and _home_ , but here Frankie is. It takes an even more specific kind of night look at the crowd and make her want to pee about a hundred times and jump out her own skin. Tonight is kind of a big night.

            My Chemical Romance. Even the name feels important. It’s like The Beatles or Bikini Kill. It pins you against a wall and says, “You better remember me.” And she is a part of it.

            Frankie can’t remember exactly when she met Michelle Way, only that she had been hearing about her for far longer. Mostly at ye ol’ rumor mill of the tri-state area, Geoff Rickley’s house where she had been staying over the summer after she had been squatting for months beforehand. Whenever he hosted a party, it seemed Michelle’s name always snuck into the conversation somehow.

            “Oh my motherfucking gosh, Michelle totally made out with Joey’s girlfriend at the Nada Surf gig last Thursday. What a slut!”

            Or, “Did you know that both the weird Way sisters are dykes now? Or like Michelle’s bisexual or something, yeah sure!”

            And then finally, “Do you have Mikey’s number, she knows everyone, right, because I’m totally almost dating Amber’s brother, you know the super cute one who went out with Tasha in senior year? Yeah, so I wanna see if she has his number and stuff. She is soo cool.”

            She saw My Chem play together for the first time on a Saturday. Frankie loved Michelle immediately from her smudged glasses to her deadpan voice. When Frankie complimented her on her shoulder length hair, she said, “Oh thanks, I’m trying to grow it out because all these old men kept thinking I was a male prostitute.” Those freaky Way sisters. Those wacky Way girls. They looked nothing alike and half the time you needed the other to translate what the first was trying to say. Frankie found herself cooped up in the library all the time after meeting them, checking out books of short stories and films from the 70’s, just trying to figure them out. She still hasn’t.

Michelle informed Frankie that the My Chemical Romance practice space was only two blocks down from the place where Frankie practiced with her band at the time, Pencey Prep. Before they bailed on the act for “more stable sources of income” and settled down like fucking yuppies, anyways.

            The band practice mostly consisted of Frankie getting massively stoned on their couch while the band members hunched intently over their instruments not out of shyness but out of the deepest kind of intensity while the lead singer, a chubby and feminine girl, jumped around the room maniacally whilst doing something that some might vaguely identify as ‘singing’. Frankie loved it. People popped in and out of the room every now and then, tossing her a beer or challenging her to a Pokémon battle on their Gameboys, but even after others had long stopped coming, Frankie stayed, splayed out on the couch, enthralled by the cheap, overly emotional, and rough around the edges band trying their hardest to impress her.

           The next six months were a Jackson Pollock of life for Frankie. My Chem put out a demo, which was, in fact, rather terrible, and Frankie played it constantly, first in the Pencey Prep van on their ways to shows and then alone on her Walkman, practicing the chords to “Demolition Lovers” until her fingers were numb. She popped the cork on the cheap champagne when the band got signed to Eyeball Records. She cheered them on their first day in the recording studio. Two weeks later, she was in the booth herself, playing guitar as an official member of the best band in the world.

            So maybe it’s not the crowd in front of her but the band itself that rings _family_ in her ears. Michelle, unreadable, hilarious, and infinitely less cool than she pretends to be; Rae, hardworking, fierce, and compassionate beyond belief; Maddy, fast and furious; and Gina. Lovely Gina, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. Gina, the owner of the perfectly lipsticked mouth that you would never believe makes the raw, throaty, Jersey scream that it does when she opens it to sing. Gina, who always pays at the diner even though she makes less money than Frankie who has been ‘in between jobs’ for so long now that she feels guilty just using the phrase. Gina, who is smart and sensitive, who Frankie could listen to for hours. Gina Way, Gina Way, Gina fucking Way. And Frankie likes her so much that even when she sat the entire band down and said, “So basically now we’re gonna do our make up so we look dead! Here’s my special home made fake blood!” she didn’t bat an eyelash.

            Gina sports a sticky red splatter across her chest tonight, the only member of the band to keep it up after Michelle and Maddy rebelled. Rae confessed to Frankie that she was secretly grateful though tonight she added a touch of red around her eyes to add a corpse-like quality. Rae’s nothing if not a good sport. As they stand onstage, idly tuning their guitars, Frankie taps Rae on the shoulder.

            “I’m nervous,” Frankie says to Rae’s chest, elegantly spilling out of a chopped up Iron Maiden shirt. She’s aware of how ridiculous they probably look, Frankie lithe and jittery, tiny, and fighting to command anyone’s attention for more than five seconds while Rae could bring a whole venue to her knees, even without the high heeled rock goddess boots. She’s a solid six feet, exactly the kind of woman prepubescent Frankie would have been envious of. Well, she still is kind of envious of her.

            “Yeah, me too,” Rae says, pushing a fountain of brown curls out of her face.

            “What are you talking about? This band is basically your baby. It’s like in your soul or something. You can’t get nervous,” Frankie protests.

            “One, it’s Gina’s baby. And two,” she says, strumming power chords idly, “It’s just a big night, that’s all. The record’s coming out tomorrow.”

            “Where’s Gina?” Frankie asks.

            “Probably backstage,” Rae shrugs.

            Frankie pops into the side room where all the bands are supposed to mingle before they go onstage. She finds Gina doing shots with the members of Glassjaw on the only table in cramped room.

            “Girl, we’re on,” she says, yanking Gina away from a guy who is very clearly ogling her breasts. “Perv,” she shoots back to him. “You ready for the show?” she asks.

            “Fine ‘n’ dandy,” Gina smirks. Frankie frowns at her.

            “G, your lipstick is already smeared. Hang on,” Frankie says, rummaging through Gina’s granny handbag until she finds the right shade. Her face feels a little hot as she holds Gina’s cheek in one hand, the other dragging the brutal, deep scarlet color across her lips. Gina seems unaware. Frankie pauses for a minute, fingers resting idly on the side of her face.

            “All good?” Gina asks, anxiously glancing out at the audience. “You are so lucky that you’ve been doing this long enough not to get stage fright.”

            Frankie is about to reply – to say that, yeah, she’d been doing this since she was thirteen and still had a self don Joan Jett imitation haircut, but that never stopped the rush of stage fright every night – but Gina has already jumped onstage and is purring into the microphone, “How’re you all doing here tonight at Big Daddy’s?” Frankie thinks the bouncer’s must be tired of hearing that one by now, but the crowd’s reaction is immediate. Gina has that effect on people when she is onstage. It’s like this sultry, aggressive woman takes over Gina’s body, the way she snarls and sways, but the words are all hers. “Now if my idiot guitarist wants to get her ass up here, we’re gonna play you a song called ‘Skylines and Turnstiles’.” Some members of the crowd actually cheer in recognition.

            She scrambles onstage, swings the guitar strap over her shoulder, and lets the music take over. The show itself is a blur of _don’tfuckupdon’tfuckup,_ bruising knees, and heat oh God so much heat; she feels like the next second she’s going to fly out of her body and there’s going to be blood and guts and probably some glitter in there too. Whenever she’s onstage, she loses all spatial awareness and crashes into this thing and that, thrusting herself on the floor, and prostrating herself over the amps. The thing that sticks with her is when she hears people singing along. She twists so she can look at Gina, and for a second it looks as if she’s going to cry. Then she lifts her head to the three stage lights illuminating them and Frankie sees her face in the light and realizes that she isn’t crying; she’s smiling so wide and so grateful it’s almost painful to see all that emotion concentrated on one person’s face. She says into the microphone, “Sing it loud if you know the words!” then she dips the microphone towards the audience in an elegant movement, like she’s just been waiting for the day when she can do it and hear her own words thrown back at her.

            By the end of the set, only five songs long, Gina pants like she’s just run a mile and chunks of her feathery black hair are sticking to her neck and forehead. Her dress had slid down entirely in the front so her bra is clearly visible on one side.

            “Wow,” she says when they get offstage. They all jump on top of each other and high five, exhausted but laughing anyways.

            They stay for the next band and Glassjaw’s set, Frankie tearing up the pit and Gina and Michelle finding residence near the bar. By then time the gig is over, it’s about two in the morning but the June night is cool and forgiving on their raw skin as they load their gear back into their newly acquired tour van. Maddy plasters a bumper sticker advertising the club on the back.

            “Big Daddy’s? Now our van _really_ looks sketchy,” Rae sighs.

            “Like it wasn’t sketchy as hell before,” Michelle reminds her.

            “Hey, you guys are My Chemical Romance, right?” a high, nervous voice asks.

            “Uh huh,” Michelle replies, turning on her easy but subtle charm. The girl that approaches them giggles nervously. She’s got a round, yellowish face with so much acne that she really does look like the moon, full of pockets and craters.

            “Well my friend and I – she chickened on coming to talk to you – we’ve seen you like four times, and we think you’re, like, _super_ amazing. That song! I loved that one song!”

            “Which one?” Gina asks, leaning on the van and lighting a cigarette.

            “The one with all the guitars and death!” Her nervousness melts easily away so she’s just drunk and awesome. Her smile is as big as Frankie’s whole head.

            “’Early Sunsets’?” Frankie offers. “You know, the zombie one?” She does a little impersonation.

            “No, no the one like,” the girl sings and mimics a furious guitar riff.

            “Oh! ‘Headfirst for Halos’,” Rae says.

            “Yeah that one. Crazy! And the way you sing it,” the fan jitters, pointing at Gina. “You sing it all filthy – like _The Exorcist_! I thought your head was gonna start spinning around!”

            “I think that’s a bad thing,” Gina says, exhaling smoke out of the side of her mouth.

            “No, girl, it was muscular! You should play it every show and, like, set the place on fire,” she said all in one breath. “Oh, that’s my friend.” She does a little bow in goodbye and darts off. The band glances at each other then bursts out in laughter.

            “Wow,” Michelle says, sneaking the cigarette away from Gina.

            “Dude, she was perfect,” Rae says, swinging into the driver’s seat, carefully so she wouldn’t hit her head.

            “Was it just me or did we meet our first fan?” Maddy asks, settling into shotgun.

            “I wanna marry her,” Frankie says dreamily.

            “Auntie’s?” Rae says. Post show tradition is to eat at Auntie Jo’s 24-hour diner, all of their ears still ringing and heads throbbing from a long night of drinking and music. Outside the van’s window, the sky is a muted blue and slate color, the kind of early morning color only New Jersey has. Maddy pops in a Lifetime tape, and everyone begins to vaguely sing along as they cross the Turnpike. The trusty old van, a staple to any loving band’s welfare, had seen better days by the time the band all chipped in to buy it used and then smothered it with their love. The smell of must is almost entirely masked by the new smells of smoke and sweat, but Frankie still likes it as a reminder that the van came from the real world and not the limbo that one finds themselves in when they’re in a small town band reaching for something bigger.

            “Which reminds me!” Gina declares at the comfortable silence in the van. She reaches in the pocket of her leather jacket and reveals an envelope filled with money. “Cash,” she says, distributing everyone’s share. “Ah,” she sighs, “As soon as I’m getting home, I’m paying my utilities and then I’m gonna take the longest shower _ever_.” Frankie groans.

            “I _miss_ hot showers. I am so sick of getting clean at that truck stop off the 95. Creepy old guys always try to get me to suck them off, I swear to fucking God.”           

            “Why don’t you go to the Y anymore?” Maddy asks. Rae glances very subtly at Frankie through the rearview mirror.

            “We’re boycotting it,” she says, but is very pointed about the fact that she doesn’t elaborate. Rae smiles at her gratefully. They pull into the halo of the fluorescent red and piss yellow lights of Auntie Jo’s.

            “Hello, weeds,” Frankie says to the dandelions poking through the cracks in the asphalt. “Hello, trashcan.” Gina glares conspiratorially at it, still unforgiving after the drunken showdown with it last month.

            “Hello, Auntie!” Frankie announces to the diner. The only other customer, a schizophrenic homeless sweetheart named Jill, gives a little wave at the band and then continues to mumble into her glass of milk.

            “Hey girls, how are you?” asks Moustache Bill, whose impressive facial hair is the envy of the entire band. If Frankie were not a massive dyke, she would fall into his sinewy old arms in an instant.

            “A drunk chick just said I looked like the Exorcist,” Gina says, sliding into the booth. She and her sister are exhausted and drunk, and they climb into the vinyl booth like sleepy puppies.

            “You can pout about it all you want,” Rae says, “But we have a fan.”

            “She was so star struck when she looked at you, Gina,” Frankie giggles.

            “No one’s star struck by me,” she mumbles into Michelle’s hair.

            “ _I’m_ star struck by you,” Frankie says, half as a joke, half as the truth.

            “And then you joined the band, so you don’t count,” Maddy points out.

            “We should just let all our fans join the band,” Gina says.

            “It’d make for a hell of a live show,” Rae agrees. They pretend to browse the menu even though they’re going to get the Waffle Plate Supreme and five coffees.

            “Maybe I’ll have the breakfast burrito this time…” Rae muses.

            “Sorry, love. Breakfast isn’t for another three hours,” Moustache Bill informs her.

            “Two waffle supremes and five cups of coffee then!” Frankie shouts across the diner at him.

            “I called Brian today,” Rae begins after a long silence broken only by the occasional shrieks and murmurs from Jill. “We’re going on tour with The Used.”

            “Holy shit!” Mikey exclaims, snapping back into the conversation. Gina’s head lulls on her shoulder.

            “Wait, who the hell are The Used?” Frankie asks. All of them, even Gina, turn to look at her.

            “They’re, like, the best new band of the year,” says Michelle.

            “Here, their album just came out.” Rae reaches into her Mary Poppins bag of wonder that is guaranteed to have everything that you need exactly when you need it, and slides the CD to her.

            “Is this gonna be like some battle of the bands shit?” Frankie asks. She’s flipping through the liner notes and finds a picture of the band. Flanked by three boys with hoodies and bad haircuts, is a scrappy, off-center woman. Her square face and strong forehead is only accentuated by long, matted and frazzled hair. Frankie can tell the signs of someone who has lived on the streets almost immediately. She’s not beautiful so much as enticing, like you’ve got to watch her because you have no idea what she’s going to do next. It’s that essence that reminds Frankie so strongly of Gina she actually glances between the two of them for a second.

            “What? No, they’re totally awesome,” Rae says, staring out the window absently at a dog that is pawing around in the parking lot.

            “Here’s your food, little ladies,” says Moustache Bill with two plates overflowing with berry waffles. They smell like heaven. Gina picks her head off of Michelle’s shoulder and stares lustfully. “How was the show tonight?” Moustache Bill fills up their mugs with steaming coffee, so dark and sharp. Frankie feels like she’s only lived on beer and saltines for the past week, which is partially untrue but she knows for a fact that she hasn’t had fresh fruit in over a month.

            “Frantic,” Gina answers through a mouthful of waffle. Michelle snickers.

            “I believe that’s the point,” he says with a knowing head nod.

            “The record comes out tomorrow,” Gina says.

            “You’re gonna bring us all a copy, right?” Bill is funny in the way that he refers to himself in the plural, like the diner is one big happy family of me myself and I. Unless he’s talking about Jill.

            “I don’t think you’d like it,” Frankie says. Showing their music to Moustache Bill would be like showing their music to their priest. He reaches down to ruffle her non-existent hair. Five months ago when My Chem asked Frankie to be in the band, she reevaluated her entire life. Quit college, left home, and shaved off her stupid I-went-to-Catholic-school-and-haven’t-fixed-it-yet hair. Her mother practically had a heart attack, but Frankie had grown quite fond of her buzz cut. That afternoon, she went to tell everyone ‘yes’.

            “I’m in it with this band no matter what,” Frankie said. “Like for the long haul. I know how much this means to you, and I’d basically die without music so. Plus you guys are like my favorite band. So, if the offer’s still open… I’m in it one hundred percent.”

            “You’re all shavedy,” Gina commented.

            “What?” Frankie had said, poking her head out comically. Since then, it was the band, in sickness and in health.

            As the morning dredges on, they talk about comics and house parties that they missed. Rae bows out first in hopes of getting three hours of sleep before she has to get up for her real live job. The rest of the band is baffled and suitably impressed at Rae’s ability to bring in a steady income. Rumor has it she even graduated college. Gina loves sleeping at Rae’s house because it has nice windows looking out onto the clean streets of the clean neighborhood that she lives in; Gina’s treat her with the view of a crumbling, graffitied brick wall. Everything about Rae is sort of like that. She smells like shower water and hand cream and doesn’t mind when the rest of the band steals her clothes because they’re the decent, semi-expensive kind that make you feel like a person again. Sometimes, on days when Gina doesn’t even think that she inhabits her body anymore, she’ll go to Rae’s house and stare out her windows until Rae turns on _Carrie_ and one of them inevitably makes a ‘worst period ever’ joke and things are okay for a little while.

            Michelle is next to go at around three am. She ruffles Gina’s hair and says, “Drink water. Eat toast. Do not text me all tomorrow saying how much hangovers suck.” Gina halfheartedly sticks her tongue out at her sister. Then it’s just the two of them, Frankie slumped between the window and the red booth and Gina leaning forward on her elbows, playing with the remains of their waffles. Frankie imagines she must look like shit, but unlike Gina, she can’t pull off the whole hot mess thing. Right now, more than anything, she wishes that she could touch Gina right now, if only twirl a lock of her hair or rest a hand on the side of her neck. She seems to be somewhere else down the rabbit hole or something, so they share a companionable silence, the kind that you only experience as the sun is rising.

            “I think that I could die for you, Frankie,” she says softly. Her eyes are closed and drawn in, like she’s saying something painful. For a moment, her words don’t register in her brain at all, only the cool slightly nasally timbre of her voice.

            “What?” Frankie says. If she had the energy, she might have lurched forward or smacked Gina playfully, but this time she only scrutinizes the woman sitting across from her. For a second, Frankie wishes that she could have hair to hide behind.

            “I’m really glad that I met you and that you’re in the band. With you onstage, I feel complete. What we’re doing is going to be really important. I want to change people’s lives.” Her sentences are filled with long pauses and deep breaths.

            “You sound really tired,” Frankie tells her. She immediately regrets not saying something as equally profound as Gina, but she’s not the most eloquent person out there and is afraid that she might fuck up what she means to say. Frankie deals in feelings and sound – music – more than she does with conversation. Gina says that she ‘lives expressively’. To Frankie, it seems like a nice way of saying that she’s an open book. The first time they ever met, after that band practice, Gina had asked her if her parents were divorced.

            “Yeah, aren’t everyone’s?” Frankie had mumbled, rubbing her hands together as they stood together outside the practice building. Gina offered her a cigarette, which she accepted gladly. She lit both of theirs before continuing the conversation.

            “Yeah, but not everyone wears it on their face. It’s that broken home look.” Her face was cast into shadow by the streetlights that made her look more angular than she really was. It was accentuated even further by the miserable expression on her face “Was it bad?”

            “Not really. Just kinda quiet, I guess.” Gina looked even sadder then.

            Gina is very, _very_ kind.

            “I am really tired,” she answers, pulling Frankie out of her momentary reverie. “I’m about to head on home and get some sleep before work.”

            “You haven’t quit your job yet?” Frankie asks, kind of shocked. Ever since she was added to the band’s lineup, Gina’s intensity over the band increased even further. She started talking about things like ‘conquering the world’ and elaborate concepts and facets of performance that Frankie, with her fast and dirty punk rock roots, could never have dreamed up. It is shocking then to her that Gina hadn’t yet cut her last tie to everyday life.

            “I’m gonna quit before the tour, but I’m still working to pay off last month’s rent.” Frankie nodded understandingly. “Do you have anywhere to sleep tonight?” she asks.

            “Oh,” Frankie says, mostly because nobody ever really asks her that question anymore. They’ve long come to terms with the fact that she always managed to take care of herself. “I was thinking that I might just crash in the van…”

            “Hey, that sucks. C’mon, you can crash at my place tonight,” Gina offers.

            “Really? That’s… thanks.” They rise, despite their aching limbs and Gina drops some cash on the table.

            On the way home, they’re almost the only car still out on the road. Frankie realizes that New Jersey really is just one big suburb. She’s spent the greater part of her adolescence and young adulthood driving up and down the highways to different towns to see yet another local band or perform in her own. Wherever she goes though, all the towns look virtually the same, with the same kind of kids: the scene queens like Michelle, the old guys at the party who have seen Springsteen live at least seven times, the unsure teenagers, the drug dealer named Crusty, the sweet goth girls, the belligerent drunks, and of course the misanthropic couples who connect to each other solely on their apathy towards everything. Frankie finds it soothing. In the early summer mornings, Frankie feels like she and Gina are the only people alive, roaring through the endless Jersey sprawl. It is in that moment that Frankie begins to understand the hugeness of the moment, like Gina has been saying from the start. That they’re on the edge of something magnificent. Revolutionary. Earthshaking. It started with the fan they talked to that night. Someone had truly been impacted by something that they created together. Frankie hadn’t been expecting that. Since forever, music had been something that she did for herself. The first time she played a guitar was like realizing that she had been missing a limb for her whole life and was only now rediscovering it. Music keeps her body connected to her soul, but if no one in the world ever liked the music that she created, she wouldn’t care. Even at Pencey Prep shows, it was about having a good time, a night out to let go of your constant nothing life. But My Chemical Romance so real to not only her but to everyone that came to see the shows. When she wasn’t yet in the band, Frankie would tell the girls all about the energy that possessed the crowd when they came onstage. It was like a release for some, like destruction for others.

            “Our music is kind of like a car crash,” Frankie notes as they pull into the parking lot.

            “Geoff told me that our band was like coughing up a liver.”

            “Ew gross. That is totally something he would say.”

            “No, but he’s right,” Gina says, turning in her seat to look at Frankie. “It’s like coughing up your liver because you see it and yeah it’s slimy but it’s also kind of beautiful.” Frankie feels a shot of something sour and adoring go through her bloodstream as Gina holds her gaze until she looks down, embarrassed. They ride the elevator – which rattles and smells like an antique store – up to Gina’s apartment where they kick off their boots and collapse on the couch. Well, Frankie does. Gina opens a window where a slightly ruffled black cat leaps through. She takes the few steps to the kitchen and pours a couple of saltines in a bowl and leaves it beneath the window for the cat.

            “His name’s Marcel,” Gina explains. “I’ll probably have to get Old Lady Judy to feed him when we’re on tour.”

            Frankie snorts. “Old Lady Judy. Okay, after this do you wanna go to the fillin’ station then drive to the town square,” she mocks in a bad Southern accent.

            “Shut up, that’s just how she is. She’s like… Old Lady Judy. You’ll know what I mean if you ever meet her.”

            “I’m taking your word for it.” Frankie’s eyes droop lazily as Gina moves around the kitchen. “What’re you doing?” she asks.

            “Making coffee.” Gina’s Jersey accent is even heavier than Frankie’s so it came out like caw-fee.

            “Aren’t you tired?” Frankie asks. Marcel jumps lithely onto the couch with Frankie and she scratches him idly. Gina’s leather jacket is hanging off of the armrest and it smells strongly of her and the show that night. In the ease of the moment, Frankie feels herself slipping very slowly into sleep.

            “I probably won’t be able to sleep. Plus I’m still pretty drunk,” Gina says, waiting for the water in her sink to get hot.

            “I thought you didn’t have utilities,” Frankie mumbles in a feeble attempt to carry on the conversation.

            “Water, not electric,” Gina says softly. Marcel nuzzling her arm is the last thing Frankie feels before waking up to bright yellow sunshine beaming through Gina’s still open living room window.

            “Shit, I fell asleep, didn’t I?” Frankie says to herself.

            “Uh-huh,” Gina says. At first Frankie can’t tell where her voice is coming from, but once she peers behind the couch, she sees her band mate on the ground meddling with an old wireless radio.

            “Holy shit,” Frankie croaks. “That’s like… a relic.”

            “What’s a relic?” Gina asks, sipping a cup of coffee and ruffling her hair. She’s changed out of the black dress she was wearing last night and is now in a Queen shirt chopped up into a tank top.

            “What’re you doing?” Frankie asks, completely ignoring Gina’s question.

            “WSOU Seton Hall Pirate Radio ring any bells for you?”

            “Holy shit! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!” Frankie leaps over the couch and tackles Gina in a hug. “You mean they’re gonna play us? They’re gonna play our song?” Gina nods enthusiastically, a huge smile across her face. “For real?” Gina nods again. “For _real_ , for real?”

            “Yeah,” Gina says, laughing at Frankie’s enthusiasm.

            “The radio. That one’s big, right?”

            “Uh-huh”

            “Wow.” Gina lightly disentangles herself and continues to fiddle with the dials.

            In the sunlight, Frankie can actually see the room instead of just making out the shapes of the sparse furniture. It isn’t the first time that she’s been inside Gina’s apartment, but it’s the first time she’s been in it for more than just a couple minutes while Gina picked up her guitar or retrieved her car keys. It’s definitely not a palace. Frankie knows that Gina used to live at her mom’s place, in the basement, for a while, back when she was still interning at Cartoon Network. Michelle has _stories_ about the basement bedroom, and Frankie always tries to imagine Gina as the gawky recluse that both Rae and Michelle seem to remember, and some days it seems _so obvious_ that Gina has always been that dorky, comic-obsessed girl reminding herself that one day all her accumulated knowledge will make her desirable and awesome, while on the other hand, it’s impossible to imagine Gina as anything other than the lead singer of the greatest band in the world.

            “Oh my God, I’ve got it!” she says, as the warped opening of ‘Vampires Will Never Hurt You’ busts through the stereo. Frankie drapes herself over Gina, stealthily reaching for the cup of coffee by their knees, but even when she’s drained half the mug, she stays snuggled up close next to her band mate.

            “Do you remember recording this?” Frankie says.

            “Oh God,” Gina says, burying her head in her hands in embarrassment.

            “You were, like, _so crazy_!”

            “The tempo was 187. On the dot.” Frankie pats Gina’s thighs in an imitation of the beat. “You thought that was the greatest thing ever and so did ‘Chelle but I had no idea what the fuck you were talking about.”

            “Blame me for reading too many of my mom’s cop mysteries when I was a kid. ‘Code 187, we’ve found a body downtown’, and all that shit.” Gina starts absently singing along with the chorus of the song then, and Frankie flops backwards onto the floor. “I was really nervous that we wouldn’t be able to cut the record that day. Like there was a wall,” Gina gestured emphatically, “that I couldn’t bust down.”

            “And you were also out of your mind on pain killers.” Frankie searches Gina’s jacket for a pack of cigarettes. Lucky Strikes. _If I still like her when she smokes Lucky Strikes, I’m in too deep_ , Frankie thinks to herself. She pats two out and offers one to the other woman. _I’m in too deep_ , she sighs.

            “Fucking, impounded tooth. That’s about the least cool debilitating injury I could’ve had too.” Frankie agrees with her. “But you remember right when we were loading the drums in the Pencey van and the sky had become dark blue and jet black and the wind was so strong?”

            “I thought poor Mikey was going to blow away,” Frankie says.

            “But there was that huge storm coming in and it was too warm? Well that was when I knew that everything was going to be okay and that the vocals would come out the way I wanted them to.”

            “And then Alex came into the recording booth – “

            “And he gave me a hug for good luck – “

            “And then he punched you in the jaw!” They collapse into laughter.

            “Man, what an asshole,” Gina says, ruffling her hair.

            “Hey, sometimes you need to be punched in the face, idiot.” Then there’s not much to say and they sit in silence, taking in the guitar breakdown in the middle of the song. When they’re recording a song, they get so caught up in what it _means_ and how it _feels_ and all that bullshit that sometimes they forget that they have to listen to it too. In all honesty, it’s horrifying. It’s scabbed and staticky and sharp. The song really does sound like it’s about to hug you but instead it decides to slug you in the jaw.

            Gina seems to be thinking along the same lines. “I’m… I sound… you wouldn’t wanna meet the girl that makes this music. You’re afraid that you’d _become_ her.”

            “Hey don’t say shit like that,” Frankie says, sitting up. “You know that’s bullshit. You _get_ people. I’ve seen the way people react when you’re making music. Hell, I’ve been right with them. You’re saying what we’re all feeling.” Gina locks eyes with her for a moment, eyes round and sleepy, and Frankie wants to know what she’s thinking. All that she says though is, “Thanks.” When the song is over, she makes sure to make Frankie the biggest breakfast possible of fake bacon, toast, and eggs. By then, she realizes that she has fifteen minutes to get to work.

            “Fuck!” she says, slipping on her boots and grabbing a jacket off the couch. “Thanks for letting me say here, Gee. Shit!” She trips over her shoelaces and almost face plants, but catches herself on the wall.

            “No, really, you can stay here anytime,” Gina says awkwardly following Frankie around in an attempt to appear helpful.

            “I’m so getting fired,” she says, darting out the door with another quick, “Thanks! See you at the release party tonight!” The door smacks shut. An old lady is collecting her mail in her slippers.

            “Don’t want to hurt yourself, deary,” she says as Frankie sprints down the stairs.

            It takes until she’s two blocks down and boarding the bus for Frankie to realize that she took Gina’s worn leather jacket by mistake. Surreptitiously she sniffs inside the collar to see if it still smells like shampoo and dirty rock club. It does. She wears it like a talisman all day, even when she’s straddling a chair in anticipation on the first hard, cold sting of a needle on her neck, inking in the outline of a scorpion.

 

***

Chapter 2

            The record release party isn’t nearly as fun as Frankie is expecting it to be. In a crowd full of suits, natives, and friends, she can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be a party or yet another recruitment meeting. She actually does dismiss two hopeful representatives from corporate major blah fucking whatever label by basically yelling, “We’re on Eyeball already, you fucking vampires,” which makes Michelle practically fall off the sofa laughing. Even when she’s dancing hard in the living room, she feels like random strangers are pulling her aside every other song to tell her what  _they_  think of her band or what they think of their “aesthetic”.

            “Fucking suits,” Frankie mutters, rummaging through Gina’s fridge for another beer. A high pitched, stoner giggle eminates behind her.

            “I fucking  _know_  right?” a girl says in a voice prematurely scraped thick and hoarse from cigarettes and binge drinking. However, her good natured smile reminds Frankie more of a mutt living on the streets than a wolf. She recognizes her immediately as the lead singer of The Used. “I’m just here for the beer. And because I’m on tour tomorrow.” She shrugs. “I’m Bertha, by the way.”

            Frankie raises an eyebrow as she hands the woman a beer.

            “I had Mormon parents,” she says, glaring in a ‘don’t pull that shit with me’ way.

            “Ahh. Well I’m Frankie.” She tips her bottle to Bertha and they both drink.

            “No shit? You a My Chem girl? I saw you guys the other night on our day off! That’s some real fucking shit, that is. Loved it! I was all, ‘Man! That band! I love that band! They’re so fucking  _real_!’” She laughs again, big and loud.

            “Glad you liked it,” Gina says, slipping into the kitchen. Frankie offers her drink to Gina who downs the rest of it in two gulps. “I am too sober,” she says, leaning in close to Frankie’s ear.

            “It doesn’t sound like it to me,” Frankie laughs. One of Bertha’s band mates, a bleached blonde pretty boy, comes in, snickering.

            “B, you gotta come out ‘n see what Jepha’s doing.”

            As she’s being pulled out of the kitchen, Bertha shoots a long look over her shoulder at Gina and says, “I’ll be seeing you, Ms. Tall Glass of Water.” Frankie feels the creeping blush of jealousy wiggle its way up her neck, but just barely.

            “Do you know her?” Frankie asks.

            Michelle swings in, drunk off her head and glasses all greasy. “Yeah, they’ve been in town for a couple of days. That chick’s crazy.”

            “But  _cute_ ,” Gina groans.

            “What?” asks Frankie.

            “Gina has a history of being emotionally destroyed by cute girls,” Michelle says matter of factly.

            “Shut up,” Gina says, shoving her playfully. “So, who wants to dance?” she proposes, and Frankie, who is always ready to dance especially when it’s with Gina, leads the way to the space they’ve cleared in the living room. Someone has put on something mid-90’s and horrifyingly gay and as soon as she hits the floor, Gina’s hips start swaying back and forth. “I think this song is so sexy,” she says to Frankie who matches her movements. The room pulses with heat and soon everyone else around her melts away except for Gina. She doesn’t think about the suits or the way that Bertha looked at Gina, only thinks about the feeling of right here, right now. She turns around and presses her ass against Gina’s hips, threading a hand through her hair. Gina reciprocates by placing a firm hand on her hip and holding her in place while she grinds against her. Her breath his hot against Frankie’s ear and if she closes her eyes she can just feel, she can just pretend…

            The song ends and Gina smiles that smile that reminds Frankie that she is totally smashed. The red cheeks, glistening eyes smile that means she’s at her peak for the night and sometime soon she’ll be passed out in a back room or falling over Rae in some blacked out stupor. Still smirking, she lights a cigarette and lightly blows the smoke in Frankie’s face. In response, Frankie snatches the cigarette out of her fingers and takes a heavy drag. Gina disappears without a trace just then, as she often does. Frankie doesn’t mind too much though, just goes out to the terrace to find the weed and gets pleasantly buzzed enough to swim through the rest of the night with ease. The music thrums in her hands but even through the haze, she can’t mistake the ways Bertha’s hands ease through Gina’s hair as they curl up together in a dark corner and don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it

            Frankie collapses on the couch. She’s draped over Michelle who is gabbing to her about some band in Chicago, Arma Angelus, or something. She keeps taking out the clips in Michelle’s hair and trying to make it stand on end using her spit. A big waft of coconut-y shampoo-y goodness informs her that Michelle showered at Rae’s house last night, probably spent the night.

            “Promise me you guys are never gonna change,” Frankie says.

            “Yeah, yeah. You sound like Gina,” Michelle says absentmindedly. She’s more drunk than high so Frankie lets it slide and just shoves her stupid glasses up the bridge of her nose and ruffles her hair. Gina’s spooky cat Marcel leaps onto Frankie’s lap and his purrs and Michelle’s goofy gossip lulls her to sleep at three in the morning.

***

 

            Morning in Gina’s house feels like her leather jacket wrapped around Frankie’s weary limbs. She cracks open her eyes, unwilling to let go of the night. Her bladder is persistent though, and after a minute of stillness, she wipes the sleep from her eyes and rolls off the couch and into the bathroom. After relieving herself, Frankie fishes around in Gina’s bathroom cabinet for something to subside her rising headache. Two dark green bottles come crashing down into the sink, pills clanking inside of them. A little hesitant, she scoops them up and inspects the labels, one reading Sertraline 10 mg and the other one reads Alprazolam 2 mg, both issued to Donna Way. She stares at the bottles filled with clinically white pills and wonders what Gina needs them for. It was always sort of apparent to Frankie that Gina could be swallowed up inside her head sometimes. Sad. She guesses it isn’t impossible then that Gina would be taking something to get her out of bed in the morning. Frankie makes a mental note to give her a hug the next time they talk.

            It is at that precise moment that an unmistakable moan issues from the other side of the thin apartment walls. And not an early-morning-partied-too-hard-last-night moan. It was a  _sexy_  moan. Frankie immediately presses her ear to the wall though she doesn’t need to because the moan is immediately followed by a louder “holy  _fuck_ , Bertha”. Frankie’s stomach drops when she recognizes the voice as Gina’s. The gasps continue to crescendo as Frankie imagines what she must look like splayed out on a bed with someone’s head buried between her thighs, her hands in their hair. She imagines her face as she comes undone, screwed tightly inward while her body curves in from pleasure. She imagines the way her back arches when she squeals, “Fuck!” and then silence. When she calms down how the sweat dries on her skin and her breaths even out. It drives Frankie up the wall just thinking about it, especially with the sounds, oh god, those sounds. It’s quiet for a few moments until Frankie thinks  _shit!_  and rushes back into the other room where she pretends to be sleeping on the couch. A moment later, she hears someone come out of the bedroom.

            Frankie cracks an eyelid open to see Bertha saunter to the kitchenette wearing Gina’s old Damned t-shirt and boy’s briefs. She hums to herself as she gets some water boiling and digs around in the cupboards trying to find a coffeepot.

            “Top left shelf,” Frankie whispers.

            Bertha turns. “Wh – “

             “Shh, I’m asleep,” Frankie says, not moving from her position, curled up on the sofa. Bertha snickers and rummages in the cupboard for the French press. At that moment, Gina stumbles out of the bedroom, a shy smile on her lips.

            “Good morning,” she murmurs, running a hand through tangled hair. Through  squinted eyes, Frankie sees them press their noses together. Then Gina reaches to touch her face and kisses her softly. Bertha reaches her hand around her hips.

            “Good morning,” she says, smirking. Frankie squeezes her eyes shut.

            “Holy shit, we’re going on tour today,” Gina says, as if the full force of the realization is just hitting her.

            “It’s not your first, is it?” the other woman asks.

            “No… but it’s our first one inland. It’ll be the first one that matters.”

            “Oh trust me, the midwest ain’t nothing to get excited about.”

            “Are you from there?”

            “… yeah, I was raised in Utah. Great punk scene but about nothing else. ‘M glad Jepha got me out of there.”

            “I can’t imagine you as a perfect Mormon daughter.”

            Bertha laughs, sudden and loud. “I was never… nah. They kicked me outta there a long time now. And anyways, I learned more on the streets about being me, enough to get me by.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Hey, no apologies necessary. It’s life, and I know it’s just the way things go, and I’ll ride it all out and try to catch a few highs and a few breaks on the way.”

            “So… breakfast?” Gina asks.

            “You’re gonna cook?”

            “Toast and honey. Mama Way’s secret hangover recipe.”

            “… you really are a cool girl, Gee,” Bertha says.

            Gina snorts. “More like freaky.” You’re so cool and  _I’m_ so freaky, Frankie wanted to say. “ _God_  why am I awake?”

            “You weren’t saying that five minutes ago,” Bertha purrs and there are more sloppy kissing sounds. A clattering sound and then Gina whispering, “Shh, you don’t want to wake her up.”

            “The kid?”

            “Shut up, you’re like six months older.”

            “You care about her a lot, don’t you? Hell, first time I saw you two I thought you were a couple.”

            “Oh… no. I mean, yes I care about her but no we’re not a couple. But you’re right… I’m not bullshitting you when I say that I think she was meant to meet us and join the band. You saw her live. You know what she’s like. She’s got magic in her fingers. I feel so… she doesn’t let me get down on myself. I’ve never had a friend look out for me the same way she does. And she’s really smart. Like I know she’s all pothead crazy and fun but she sees more than you think. She gets things.” Frankie bends her head and wraps the bedsheet around herself tightly like it would hold together all the cheap parts of her she was afraid might fall out of her. She knows that she is that one Barbie doll that had its hair cut off with safety scissors and marker all over her face, but the way Gina spoke about her makes her feel like she is picking her up and loving her anyways. Frankie isn’t altogether familiar with the feeling of guilt but this time it scoops her up and tickles the stretch marks on her thighs.

            She peeks through her eyelids and sees Gina staring at the sink, endlessly, cooling cup of coffee in hand.

            “Gina?” Bertha asks, not yet accustomed to her odd tendency to lose track of conversations.

            “I think I have to pee,” she replies, dropping the mug in the sink and exiting.

            “You know, Gina’s pussy tastes like pizza,” Bertha says right in Frankie’s ear. The next instance is a disturbing combination of Frankie whimpering at the thought and jumping about four feet in the air in surprise. The other woman just snickers as she pulls on a pair of jeans, discarded on the coffee table. She slings a backpack over her shoulder while Frankie presses the heel of her hand to her forehead and waits for the room to stop spinning.

            “Jesus fuck,” Frankie groans. “Are you going?”

            “Yeah, I got shit to do.”

            “But… she’s just in the other room.”

            “Yeah, you’ll tell her I ducked out, right?” It shouldn’t be as annoying as it is to Frankie, Bertha’s casual honesty. She doesn’t second guess her choices, she says what she means, don’t mean harm, just does what feels good. Frankie hates herself for wishing that it wasn’t so, that she could at least console Gina after being stood up by a shitty girl.

            “Yeah sure.”

            “Do you love her?”

            “What… the fuck?” Frankie is pouring herself a cup of coffee and feels like her reaction is very believable to someone who is  _not_  in love with her lead singer. She gives herself about an eight.

            “Nothing. You just kinda seem like you love her.” The door clicks shut.

            Gina’s apartment really is beautiful in the morning light. Frankie can see why she chose it, even though the plumbing is spotty and it’s in a shit part of town. The light cuts through the windows and illuminates everything like it’s crystallized in amber. She finds a marker on the counter and writes on the wall I WISH I WERE A GHOST and draws a little ghost flipping her off.

            “Did Bertha leave?”

            “Band emergency,” Frankie says. Gina’s brow furrows for a moment but she seems to understand because she nods to herself and continues making them breakfast. That leaves Frankie free to consider herself and Gina. If Bertha knew about her feelings, did anyone else? She had always thought that she was very good at keeping her true feelings hidden. Or at least, she had learned to do so. After her mom and dad split, she learned to hide how she was really feeling, if it meant that her mom could go to bed every night and only have to worry about herself. But that was to make someone else feel good. If anyone found out about how she liked Gina… that would be  _humiliating._

***

Chapter 3

            They were sitting at Auntie’s one time talking about comics when Michelle said, “You know Gee almost did the art for Spiderman?” Rae rolled her eyes but Frankie shrieked, “What? You never told me this Gee- _nah_.”

            “That’s because there’s nothing to tell,” she said, tugging on her hair. Frankie was staring at her pale shoulder where a thick lacey bra strap was hanging. It was glaringly obvious to Frankie but Gina doesn’t seem to notice.

            “Oh she is such a liar. They were having open calls for an artist for the relaunch of Spiderman, right. And so she coops herself in the basement for like a whole week, and when she finally comes out she’s got like two notebooks full of fucking Spiderman and she goes, ‘I don’t know if they’re any good’,” Michelle imitates in a whiny voice, “Like holy fuck. They were amazing.” Michelle’s voice, though proud, was tinged with something heavy. Frankie waited patiently for the next part of the story, then looked around expectantly between the three of them when it didn’t come.

            “Well what happened?” she said.

            “I got the job.”

            “ _And_ ,” Frankie prompted.

            “I turned it down,” Gina said. She pulled up her bra strap.

            “Oh.” Frankie takes a sip of black coffee. “Why?”

            “I didn’t wanna… spend my life reproducing this – I mean, I wanted something meaningful. Like…” Getting out the right words is clearly a struggle, and she ruffles her hair in frustration. “Spiderman wasn’t gonna get to people. Comics… in general. They weren’t gonna get to that one freaky girl in the middle of nowhere that’s like… looking for something bigger. So I owed it to myself and to that girl… wherever… to not get stuck just doing something because it was safe or easy.”

            Frankie is thinking about this as they speed down the highway, somewhere between Maryland and Virginia. Gina’s staring out of the window at the thrilling landscape of empty fields and strip malls but a sketchbook lies in her lap, seemingly forgotten. Rae tells Michelle about how they’re going to stay with her friend Dusty, a little ways outside of D.C. “She’s got this big house in the middle of nowhere and she used to throw these crazy parties that went on for days on end,” she says. They’ve been on the road for what seems like _forever_ but it’s probably only been a couple of hours. The first thing they did was set up a system for who got music privileges, and right now they’re listening to a mixtape Maddy got from some guy who has been chasing her since last year. It’s got a couple good tunes though – some Archers of Loaf and some local bands too – so Frankie deals.

            Driving through wherever reminds Frankie a bit of being underwater. The world slips and blurs together into Wal-Mart color schemes and rows and rows of industrial crops. She remembers what Rae once told her about physics and the world, how all matter is mostly just empty space, about how everything is mostly just nothing.

            The van finally grids to a halt in front of a small farmhouse, a few beer and soda cans speckling the scenery, mostly by a fire pit which is central to the scene. There are three people lounging around it, occasionally pointing at the sky or passing a bong, completely oblivious to the van that has driven up the dirt road. The band unloads, cautiously, all except for Rae who goes over to the group and gives the woman to the right a warm hug.

            “This is Dusty, guys. Dusty, this is the band.”

            “Nice to meet you guys. Don’t worry, I have bands stay here all the time,” she says in a deep voice, dusting off her black vest, dreadlocks swinging over one shoulder. Michelle sizes her up discreetly. She’s a scene queen in another’s territory, though they really couldn’t be more different. Dusty is crusty and warm with her bubbly face and skin the color of coffee without milk, while Michelle is smooth and aloof, stoic and pale. Gina nudges her and Michelle reaches out to shake her hand like the rest of them. Dusty pulls her into an enthusiastic hug, Michelle’s necklace getting caught on the copious amounts of spikes on her vest, but Frankie thinks she sees her relax or at least say ‘whatever’ to herself. She turns to Frankie and gives a nonchalant shrug. Michelle is very good at shrugs.

            While her two companions opt to stay outside, Dusty takes the band inside and shows them around. When they get to the kitchen she asks, “You playing the place down on 22nd Street?”

            “Uhh… yeah?” Gina says. Rae affirms this with a nod. At this information, Dusty rolls her eyes and tosses Maddy a bag of Doritos.

            “You can help yourself. Steve’s a real hard ass about feeding the openers. I think we have some apples around here somewhere? Probably.” On top of the kitchen table is a large jar labeled with yellowing tape RENT, filled about halfway with quarters. She fishes around in her pocket before dropping two more in. She leads them down a narrow hallway, each of them single file, bumping their bags into one another. “Band room’s in here. Bathroom’s the one on the left. Joseph sometimes walks around in his underwear, as a heads up.” They all pile into the bedroom, relatively bare with only an iron framed queen sized bed, a dresser, and a lamp displaying only the bare bulb. Frankie inspects the writing on the white, cracking walls.

            “Kyle sux cock,” she reads aloud. “Classy.” The band disperses a little while after that, Rae and Michelle going to find Dusty, Maddy collapsing on the bed in exhaustion, and Gina disappearing with only a vague hand wave as explanation to where she was going. Frankie huddles in the corner and writes in her journal.

 

_We’re dirty people like made from cracks in walls and spurting showerheads. We used to be clean kids, I guess, but the grime comforted us. It’s a way of life. Stained carpets mean we belong someplace. I hope it’s because we’re pure of heart._

 

            The land surrounding Dusty’s small house is wild and full of tumbling hills and secret patches of trees where the mosquitoes can’t go. At the southernmost part of the property, Frankie finds Gina sitting on an abandoned car seat, maybe from a band just like them except this one never left, just disappeared into the ground and all that’s left are those two back seats. She plops down beside Gina who is staring down the hill to the highway. They sit in silence for a while, picking at the cigarette burns on the seats and biting at their nails.

            “So… do you, like, dream of things… like, I don’t know… maybe me?” Frankie asks.

            “Sometimes. But they usually end up with you killing me.”

            “Oh. I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay. You always kill me, like, very respectfully. So, thanks, I guess.”

            “You’re welcome.”

            Frankie leans back into Gina who rubs her neck. It soothes her, Frankie always soft and warm in her arms. She nuzzles Gina back and sighs contentedly against her. Gina’s fingers trace the sharp blotch of ink peeking out from below the other woman’s ear, in the shape of a scorpion.

            “Did you know that they messed up and only put three legs on one side?”

            “Really?” Gina tilts Frankie’s head back and, sure enough, the scorpion only has seven legs. “I kind of like it imperfect, though. Suits you.”

            “Wow, thanks.”

            “You know what I mean.” Frankie is unsure that she did. “Next time you want one, I can design one for you. If you want.” Gina’s soft fingertips brush the top of Frankie’s forearm. Little goose bumps form wherever they touch her skin. “Right here. Something that no one else’s ever seen ever before.” Under Gina’s unsuspecting touch, Frankie feels safe and beautiful. She thinks, _Even if Gina never loves me back, I’ll have this moment right here._

 

***

            The show is riotous that night. The kids jump over each other and thrash like puppies and when they aren’t listening with eyes wide like the moon, they’re singing along to the chorus like it’s a prayer. “This song is about knife fights and friendship. And if you don’t have friends, well that shit ain’t true because you have us,” Gina says before launching into “Our Lady of Sorrows”. She captures the crowd’s imagination in a way that seems so natural, but Frankie remembers six months ago when Rae had to remind Gina kindly to actually look at the audience when she’s singing. Her movements are still ragged and sharp, but she’s no longer overcome by the music. Instead, she cuts it up and throws the scraps out to the audience. They swallow it like they’re starving.

            In between their set and The Used’s, the band stands in the back lot of the bar, taking a smoke break with some audience members.

            “You guys were great, seriously. I didn’t even know that girls could scream,” one of the guys says. Gina and Frankie exchange a wry look but say nothing.

            “Can I, uhh, get a picture with you two?” asks a lovely redhead, holding up her Polaroid camera slightly. “My little sister loves you, but she’s not old enough to get into bars yet, so I thought it’d be really cool to bring something back for her.”

            “Sure thing!” Rae smiles. They crowd close, Gina slipping her hand casually around Frankie’s waist.

            “Rock ‘n’ roll bitches,” the guy says. Frankie is sure that the camera catches her eye roll.

            “So, what kind of stuff inspires you?” the redhead asks. Before Frankie knows it, Gina and Rae are immersed in a conversation with her about Dario Argento films and Iron Maiden, the usual which Frankie – who was raised on a strict diet of jazz and, later, punk – is only slightly out of the loop on, but she decides to seek out Michelle to address a more pressing matter. She is, of course, by the bar and luring men who don’t know better into giving her free drinks, one of which she slides to Frankie as she approaches.

            “Hey, Frankie, great show right?” Michelle says. Frankie opens her mouth to respond, but the lights go out just then. Rae and Gina sneak in through the back door, cheering along with the crowd.

            “Hey, motherfuckers! How are y’all feeling tonight?” shouts Bertha. The crowd cheers wildly in response. “How about My Chemical Romance?” Another roar from the crowd. “That Gina Way. You better keep your eye on her. Hell of a kisser too.” The band launches into their set, and Michelle nods her head towards the exit. Frankie grabs a half full beer bottle and follows.

            “So what’s up?” Michelle asks. The late summer air is damp and speckled with mosquitoes that perch and suck on the stragglers in the gravel parking lot.

            “I was gonna ask you about this, like, girl problem I have,” Frankie says, sipping her beer to appear casual.

            “Franks, here’s your problem,” Michelle says before Frankie can even begin to elaborate. “You’re a hopeless romantic, babe. You’re all caught up in here and in here,” she says pointing to her head and her heart. “You just gotta go out and do it, you know? So, who’s the lady that’s got you all tied up?”

            “Your sister.”

            “Eww, fuck. Frankie, you can’t go telling me this shit. It’s unethical or something!” When Michelle’s horrified or indignant, nothing about her face really changes except for her eyes bug out like she’s personally willing you to disappear. It’s pretty surreal actually.

            “You asked!”

            “I don’t wanna think about you mackin’ on Gina. That’s gross!” She flaps her hands around her ears to prove her point.

            “But – “

            “Nope.” Michelle makes abortive shush-y karate chop type motions with her hands. “Go talk to Rae about it.”

            “Well thanks,” Frankie says bitterly, finishing her drink then snatching Michelle’s out of her hands. “Now you owe me this.” Her band mate just shrugs because she knows another is just a wink away.

            The next time Frankie sees Rae is back at Dusty’s house after the show. In honor of the first night on tour, there’s a bonfire and someone named Kyle (“Kyle of _Kyle sux cock_ fame?!” Maddy exclaims) is spinning records all night. Rae and Frankie seemed to have the exact same plan for the night: that is, get very drunk. She gauges this by Rae’s current dancing style, a combination of excessive hips and swishy arms, a classic among party goers which Frankie affectionately refers to as The Designated Driver: Free At Last. It probably means that she’s reasonably wasted, somewhere between her touchy-feely stage and philosophical musing stage. Frankie considers it her perfect opportunity.

            “Rae, babe, I need help. I’m a mess,” Frankie pouts then snorts with laughter.

            “Franks, I dunno. I’m a lil tipsy right now.” They stare at each other for a beat then cracked up. Rae pulls her over to the keg, graciously accepting a cup for each of them. “So what seems to be the problem?”

            “I like a girl I shouldn’t.”

            “ _Chasing Amy_ shouldn’t?”

            “No, she’s into girls too. More like _Mulholland Drive_ shouldn’t _._ ”

            “Are you gonna ask me to kill your mystery girl?”

            “No like… you think she’s all into you and stuff but then it turns out that it’s an alternate reality and you actually have to watch her make out with someone else at the dinner party.”

            “Franks, you lost me.”

            “Like… say I want this girl who’s part of a bigger part of my life. And if I fucked it up, it’d fuck up a lot of other stuff. Not just for us. But if I didn’t fuck it up then it’d be…” Frankie goes all hot in the face.

            “Frankie, this isn’t fucking middle school, you can tell me who it is.”

            “It’s Gina!”

            “What?”

            Frankie lowers her voice. “The one I like that I shouldn’t is _Gina._ What do I _do_?”

            “Not talk to me about it!”

            “But _Rae_ , you’re my fairy godmother. You’re supposed to help me figure this shit out.”

            “No way. I’m just here to play guitar and watch someone else’s TV. I’m not getting involved in your… _emotional_ stuff. If you two are together, great. If you’re not, whatever, but deal with it.” Frankie starts feeling bad now because Rae has ended up looking seriously distressed. “This is my band too,” she says. Frankie gives her a big fat drunky hug and fluffs her hair. This seems to make her feel a little better because Rae is, after all, a giant softie. As Frankie’s about to walk away, Rae puts a hand on her arm. “If I were you, I’d talk to Brian. It’s like in his contract to deal with this shit, or something.”

            Thus, Frankie is lying atop the van’s hood, getting progressively drunker waiting to talk about her girl drama with her band’s manager. She pulls a sharpie out of her pocket and writes YOU’RE SUCH A RIOT on the glistening white hood of the car.

            “What’s up, Moody Blues?” Brian asks, slinging his heavily tattooed body onto the hood of the car, which bounces at his arrival.

            “How many people do you think are fucking right now?” Frankie asks. Brian, the man, the mountain, shrugs and offers her a cigarette.

            “We’re at a party on the first night of the tour,” Brian says.

            “Right.”

            “So, are you gonna tell me what’s got you down?”

            “No, I don’t think so. I’ve gotten some previously bad reactions.” She exhales smoke through her nose where it kind of burns. “I miss the days when all I wanted was to play guitar and get out of Belleville.”

            “You did happen to get both of those things,” Brian reminds her. He punches her in the arm. “Come on, Peewee. You’re too young to feel old.”

            “Don’t call me Peewee, motherfucker,” she says, but she’s also laughing.

            “Hey, I’m not that old of a guy either, remember. You guys are my ticket out, too.” Talk about a reality check. “So are you gonna make me guess?”

            “’Bout what?”

            “About what’s got my girl so down.”

            “You married Brian?” she asks. The moon is the only source of light up in these hills, but Frankie can still make out a silver band around his finger.

            “Yeah, six months in a couple of days.” Frankie wonders what it means that he’s out with them here than back in Jersey with his wife. He looks fucking proud though, shining even, so she gives him an honest smile for once and a ‘congratulations’.

            An obnoxiously loud camera noise goes off.

            “Hey guys! Look what a fan gave us!” Gina waves a Polaroid camera in her hand. “I hope that one doesn’t come out too dark because you two looked so awesome and spooky.” She flaps the palm-sized picture.

            “You’re not supposed to do that, you know,” Frankie says, staring at her small, angular hands.

            “Do what?”

            “Shake Polaroids. Outkast fuckin’ lied, man.”

            “What the hell, Outkast wouldn’t lie to me.”

            “It’s a fucked up world.” Gina nods solemnly before grabbing her quickly and kissing her on the cheek, snapping another Polaroid of them. Frankie shoves her away, probably harder than necessary, but Gina just laughs some more, a big fat stoner laugh that she got from her mama. Frankie knows because she’s seen them, good ol’ Jersey girls through and through.

            Brian peers at her, and Frankie is sure in that instant that he gets it, the whole of it, but he’s good enough to pretend to check his phone and say, “It seems my services are required elsewhere.”

            And then Gina hops up on the hood of the car with her and kisses the photo, which has finally come into focus. She tries to mumble something like ‘magnifique’, but it comes out all slurry and embarrassing instead. She doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. The photo gets tucked away in the upper pocket of Gina’s jacket, and Frankie likes the idea of it there against her warm chest. Maybe she’d pull it out and wonder where it came from or tuck it in her wallet like a safety charm. “That’s Frankie,” she’d say when she showed it to people. “She’s my – “

“I thought of a dream where you didn’t kill me,” Gina says, rubbing a hand through her hair and staring intensely at the stars, kind of lost like if everything in her apartment got moved two inches to the left. The whole tour – sleeping on strangers’ floors, showering in rest stop bathrooms, waking up to strange faces every morning – should feel strange or unreal, but it’s the most at home Frankie’s felt in her whole life.

            “Oh yeah?” 

            “You were there and I was there. I always have nightmares but this wasn’t… nothing really happened even. It was just you and me. And then you reached out and grabbed my arm and left a big wet paint print, handprint. A blue one. And then I knew it was a dream because paint like that feels prickly and weird like, like it’s trying to be your skin or something, but this didn’t feel gross. It was just cool like water but slower.” They’re touching in exactly two places: their hips bumped together and Gina’s pinky finger brushing the back of Frankie’s hand, but all Frankie can feel is the places where they aren’t touching, where they should be touching. Despite herself, Frankie cuddles up next to her and says something about the cold, even though it’s the perfect kind of summer night where everything is warm and comfortable, buzzing slightly.

            They lie like this for a while, Gina blabbing about all the amazing people she’s met so far. People far out and brilliant, people that “could probably totally _get_ me,” she says. Some kids are jumping around out past the hills, just at the edge of what Frankie can see, black silhouettes against the purple sky. The world could swallow them up in a single gulp.

            “You know Noah? And how he gets swallowed by a whale?” Gina says.

            “Yeah, sure. I went to Catholic school.”

            “Promise me we won’t get all swallowed whole,” she says.

            Gina looks at her with big eyes, big soul searching eyes. She stares at her for so long that Frankie wants to ask her if she’s on drugs or if there’s a dude with a chainsaw behind her, but Frankie finally nods and then, ever so slightly, Gina crumples in on herself. The change is so miniscule that it’d be hard for anyone else besides maybe Michelle to tell. She wants to know what she did wrong, but next thing she’s being pulled up off the hood of the car and propped into proper middle-school-Frankenstein-style-slow-dance position.

            “I had an idea for a new song,” says Gina as they sway back and forth, the music from the party drifting quietly in the air.

            “Really?”

            “Sort of. I have some lyrics and the tune. Like this.” She hums the tune a little, something dark and haunting, much slower than anything they’ve done before. Frankie thinks, _maybe just with guitar and voice._ “And did you come to stare or wash away the blood?” Gina sings. Her voice is wavering and kind of mournful, like a banshee or a wolf howling at the moon. Michelle once told Frankie when she was really drunk about the time after Gina came home from art school, how she’d have nightmares and wouldn’t wake up from them until she was throwing up. How she’d just drift around like a ghost. “And then I don’t have any more. Wanna help me write it when we’re sober and stuff?”

            “Sober?” Frankie says because for a second she forgot that that even existed. “Sure.” They stare at each other for an intense moment, one where Frankie is sure that Gina is picturing her as a ring wraith and Frankie is picturing Gina naked. The moment should end but it keeps going until she’s thoroughly confused and slightly turned on. The night is dark compared to the light polluted cities that Frankie’s used to, and Gina’s features are blue and blurry, except for her eyes, which are full of glittering blackness.

            “I’m gonna get another drink,” Gina says, pulling back. “Want one?”

            Frankie clears her throat. “Sure.” Gina gives a quick smile then slinks off to find the alcohol. Frankie meanders around the right side of the house, kicking an empty beer can as she goes. The night has reached a high point when the make outs are sloppy and booty popping is plentiful. Some sweaty guys are trying to mosh together, beers still in their hands and spilling all over each other. Michelle is curled up by the fire pit with Rae, drunkenly fondling her boobs. In earshot is a group of guys, making suggestive hand motions around them and laughing. What gag worthy fucks.

            “You know those babes are from My Chemical Romance, right?” the first one, a stocky skinhead, says.

            “No fuckin’ way. I heard they were gonna make it big,” snorts the second, some tall and lanky indie rock looking dude.

            “Fucking yeah they are. My friends from RCA – I’ve told you I’ve got friends from RCA Records, right? – were scouting them a while back, but they were dumb enough to stay on some small label outta Jersey.” The other guy snorts. “What, you don’t think they’re gonna last?”

            “Not a fucking chance,” says indie dude. “A buncha fucking dykes and a he-she and they don’t know shit about the industry. Sure, the lead singer’s kinda hot but I can’t even look at that drag queen guitarist. You know that shit ain’t real,” he says, making groping gestures. Frankie’s blood is fucking boiling.

            She strides right over to them, sizing them up. She heads for the skinhead, immediately thinking she can take him. He’d be the harder one to beat anyways because he’s built like a steel column. Indie rocker would be a snap; he’s skinny like Michelle but lacks the impenetrable gaze.

            “You got shit to say about my friends?” she says in the skinhead’s face, spit flying.

            “Woah, step off you crazy bitch,” the guy shoots back.

            “Yeah, what’s your fucking problem?” says the other one, trying to pull her back.

            “Get your hands off me, asshole!” she says, shoving his arm away.

            “What’re you here to defend the honor of that fucking tranny or something?” says the skinhead, getting up in her personal space.

            “Yeah, I am, because _she’s_ a fucking person and _she’s_ the best goddamn guitarist this side of fucking Mississippi, so you better show some goddamn respect.” She shoves him backwards. He staggers at the unexpected move, and his friend catches him as he stumbles. By this time, Michelle and Rae hear the commotion and begin to make their way towards them.

            The fuming skinhead is about to retort something, but the other one steps in saying, “Hey, step off you crazy cunt.”

            “What the hell is going on?” asks Rae.

            “Oh shit. _It’s_ here. Let’s get out of here, man,” the skinhead says. As he turns his back, Frankie growls, “Oh no you fucking don’t” and takes a running leap at him, and she lands on his back. He doesn’t go down, though, so she starts pounding at his head furiously with her fists while he shouts “Getheroffme! Getheroffme!” His friend tries to grab her and receives a mouthful of knuckles. When Frankie pulls her hand back, there’s a satisfying amount blood. She’s vaguely aware of Michelle and Rae shouting in confusion while other partygoers gather around to watch the fight. The skinhead finally collapses and climbs on top of her, shoving the side of her face into the dirt. Her ears ringing, she flails, her elbow finally making connection with his stomach. The other guy is still hovering around the fight, hoping to be useful, takes the opportunity to pull her up from underneath her armpits. Frankie grits her teeth and kicks out her legs, finding contact with his shins, then being immediately dropped back down the ground. The entire right side of her body aches but, no, she’s just getting started.

            The fight is well matched considering Frankie’s got into enough brawls from living on the streets ever now and then. She’s left with a good amount of scrapes and bruises, but she barely even feels them through her rage. Eventually, a pair of strong, dry hands pull her away from the two of them, and she finds herself staring face to face with Dusty.

            “You better have a damn good explanation for this shit,” she says then hands her off to Rae and Maddy.

            “She started it,” mumbles the indie rock asshole. Dusty turns around and for a second, even Frankie’s scared.

            “Do you think I _give a fuck_?” He’d about to respond, too, before she cuts him off with the true meaning of a rhetorical question. “Get out!”

            “Hey, we were just – “

            “I don’t fucking care! Get out!” He looks like he’s about to call her a bitch but after his previous experience with Frankie thinks better of it. The two men trudge off like dogs licking their wounds.

            Inside, Frankie sits on the toilet sipping a beer and calming down while Rae soaks a wet washcloth in the sink. Gina appears in the doorway.

            “I leave you alone for one second,” she says, leaning against the doorframe. Maddy finds a box of Band-Aids and tosses them to Frankie.

            “It’s not my fucking fault they chose to be assholes,” she mumbles. The bathroom is cramped and with Rae occupying the space by the mirror, Frankie has to feel along the bridge of her nose to find the parts that are sore and raw before placing a bandage over it. Her fingers are left tinged red at the tips.

            Dusty finally appears behind Gina who moves closer to Frankie. “So, what the fuck? I mean, it’s not like this is the first fight I’ve had to break up but you could at least have given a girl a heads up.”

            “Hey, I didn’t know you had an open door policy for assholes.”

            “Frankie, cool it,” Gina says, holding her gaze steadily.

            “Nah, it’s fine,” Dusty says. “I didn’t even know the guys. They probably just tagged along from the bar.”

            “So are you gonna tell us what that was all about or what?” Maddy asks. Frankie shrugs as she wipes her forehead with the washcloth. Dusty raises her eyebrows at her.

            “They were talking shit about the band,” mumbles Frankie.

            “And so you felt the need to beat the shit out of them?” Dusty says, crossing her arms.

            “No!” Frankie fidgets. “There were saying some, like, _really_ uncool things about Rae.” Her eyes meet Rae’s meaningfully, and Rae’s eyebrows knit together sadly. She understands Frankie’s implication.

            “You didn’t have to do that for me,” she says very quietly.

            “But I did! You deserve so much more than that bullshit. You’re my family. Anyone that can’t handle who you are needs a mouthful of knuckles,” Frankie insists.

            “Do you two want to tell us what you’re talking about?” asks Gina.

            “Hey, Dusty, can I talk to the band alone, please?” Rae asks. Dusty gives a knowing nod and exits the bathroom.

            “There’s something that I want to be upfront with you guys about,” she begins. Right now, Rae has on her Brave Face which Frankie doesn't see that often because, well, Rae is always brave so she knows it must be something pretty big. She thinks she sees Gina and Michelle exchange a questioning look with each other, secretly communicating beyond the realm of mere mortals like they often do. It comes with the sisterly territory. “I didn’t tell you guys sooner because… well because people aren’t always cool with it. I’ve had some trouble with bands in the past, y’know, being who I am. It’s hard enough having someone take you seriously when you’re a woman and even more when you’re a woman like me. So when I met you guys I didn’t want to blow it or anything because you’re all great people who I care about a lot. And I didn’t want to lose that. The thing is, I was born physically male. I’m a transgender woman.” Maddy looks generally confused, Michelle’s face is blank and it’s anyone’s guess what she’s feeling, but Gina is smiling lightly. “I always knew that there was something different about me but it took me a long time to finally understand that it was okay to be me. I started transitioning five years ago, and… here I am.” She looks up from her hands, shrugging nervously.

            “You told Frankie though?” Maddy asks.

            “Oh yeah. Frankie was just staying at my house for a while and kind of recently I had this… situation at the YMCA. These two old ladies yelled at me for being in the lady’s changing room. And then I asked for help from the management but they just insisted that I use the men’s changing room, and obviously I was very flustered and upset and needed someone to talk to. Frankie’s been really supportive and awesome.” Frankie bounds up off the toilet and gives Rae a big fat hug. “Are… do you guys have any questions?” Rae asks tentatively.

            Maddy’s the first to speak up. “I don’t really know anything about gender or all the intellectual crap or anything… but you’re my friend and if you say you’re a girl, that makes you a girl.” It’s more words than Maddy usually says in an hour, so they all take it as a strong sign of good will. Rae exhales a little in relief to which Frankie squeezes her hand encouragingly.

            “I sort of wondered if you were,” Gina says. She steps forward and hugs Rae too then kisses her on the cheek, leaving a thin red splotch of lipstick. “Thank you for telling us.” They all focus their attention to Michelle. She freezes up then shrugs really quickly.

            “Of course I support you. You’re like, my best friend.” She smiles real quick, just for Rae, then hides behind her cool façade again.

            “Oh go _on_ ,” says Gina and pushes Michelle in Rae’s direction. She laughs a little then embraces the other woman. Frankie then finds it to be her duty to jump on the love pile and soon they’re all hugging and smiling.

            “You really shouldn’t have attacked those guys though,” Rae says after they’ve all broken apart and are filtering out of the bathroom.

            “Why?” asks Frankie, genuinely confused.

            “I mean, you can get away with it because you’re _you_. But… you know sometimes it’s really scary being a trans woman. Some people really hate me. I just… the world’s a dangerous place.” There’s a sadness in Rae’s eyes just then that seems to go on forever like a dark cavernous tunnel, a sadness Frankie’s never noticed until now. All she can do is hold onto Rae’s hand and try to make sure that she doesn’t fall in.

 

Chapter 4

            Four days and three shows later, Gina is draped over an acoustic guitar, her brow furrowed. Occasionally she’ll fluff her hair in frustration then write something down on the page next to her before returning to her task. Frankie watches her struggle from the water cooler where she’s talking with Rae about the latest Queer as Folk episode. Or rather, listening to Rae talk about it because she’s the kind of freak that actually watches it for the plot.

            Bertha appears and sweeps Gina up in her arms. They immediately shove their tongues down each other’s throats, right there onstage in front of the invisible audience. Frankie turns back to Rae whose face is contorted into some sort of grimace like her dog just peed on the carpet. Frankie raises an eyebrow, so innocently she’s practically indifferent. Rae sighs.

            “I don’t think she’s good for her,” she explains. Frankie leans against the wall, watching Bertha whisper and giggle in Gina’s ear.

            Frankie shrugs. “She makes her happy,” she says. It’s something that someone that isn’t selfish would say, and it makes her feel a little less shitty, even if it isn’t true. Rae looks surprised but doesn’t press it. She just knocks out a guitar riff when the sound tech asks her to play. When they’re finished with sound check, Frankie finds Michelle backstage with some guitar techs and plays Warhammer 40k with them (she sucks royally). They all ask where Gina is, especially because she finally finished her army of orcs she’s been hand painting since the summer, but Frankie just shrugs.

            On her way back from the bathroom, Frankie hears stubborn chords wafting into the hallway from backstage. Gina is curled up in a corner alone, humming and strumming faint chords, jet-black hair falling in choppy waves in front of her face like the ocean at high tide. Her fingers stumble over a chord and the sound is jarring. Gina huffs quietly and begins again.

            “Hey,” Frankie says. Gina peeks up from the guitar, hair falling back to reveal her face which lights up as soon as she sees her, just for a moment before the silky black night of her hair falls back in her face. She shoves it behind her ear, grinning again.

            “Hey Frankie,” she says.

            “What’s up?”

            “I’m trying to get this song down but I can’t get the guitar right,” she says. She sounds like something is stuck in her throat, like the song is caught in her and all she wants to do is get it out. Frankie knows the feeling, so she kneels in front of her, reaching for the guitar. Gina, however, just scoots forwards, pressing their bodies together like they’re spooning, resting Frankie’s hand on the neck of the guitar. She fingers the chords at Gina’s command while she strums, a slow and wavering motion. Frankie wants to kiss her knuckles. If she peeks down, she can see a red blotchy hickey peeking out from Gina’s collar.

            They play tentatively until Frankie gets the pattern down. As her fingers become more sure though the song gets louder and begins to emerge, something out of nothing. Frankie can feel the tension in Gina’s shoulders and the song stutters out, losing its vibrancy almost as quickly as it comes.

            “It’s missing something,” Gina says and Frankie agrees.

            “Maybe… you just need to let it all go. Like at a show. You know, you’ve got to take what’s real and let it out of you. Just go crazy.” Gina laughs a little. Frankie suggests a bridge set for an explosion, and Gina adds lyrics that climb each step like a moan or a sob.

            The song is a stubborn one. If Frankie closes her eyes, she can imagine it like a living thing, the deep blues of the verses, spiraling together with Gina’s voice tinged silver as they build up to the chorus where everything breaks and the song is moonlight reflecting blood on pavement. She hears Gina choking up a couple of times, like it’s almost too much to bear, being this close to Frankie’s skin or baring her soul, Frankie can’t be sure which.

            After a while, Frankie decides it’s too much for Gina and switches to playing Smashing Pumpkins songs. By the time the club starts filling up, they’re both dancing around backstage, Frankie jumping up and down with the guitar and Gina swishing her hips and her arms in an effort to impress nobody. Midway through “Zero”, Frankie spins around to see Michelle standing rigidly in the doorway. Gina’s a second late on the uptake and freezes. Michelle adjusts her glasses but then, in a reedy and shy voice, starts the next verse and nods her head along as they start to dance again.

            The show that night makes the entire building shake like an earthquake. The audience pounds the walls and rams into one another with reckless abandon. They prostrate themselves on the stage and reach out to Rae, trying to feel the magic in her fingertips, before flinging themselves off into the waiting hands of the other audience members. The floor becomes slick with sweat and drinks, but the audience lifts each other up when they come crashing to the floor.

            Outside, the band talks with fans for hours, handing out pins and bumper stickers, scrawling My Chemical Romance on the sticky limbs of anyone who gets close enough. When she’s not in the tornado of the show, Frankie can see everyone’s individual faces, not the wavering mirage that they appear to be onstage. She tries to memorize every individual feature, their names, their stories, but it’s hard to keep up. _I listen to your album to get through the school day_ murmurs a small blonde, or _I met my boyfriend at your last concert here_ shouts a boy with a septum piercing, or _I’m so glad that you’re girls and you’re driving the punk scene. I’m gonna start my own band!_ says a teenager in fishnets, or _I was so depressed after my last relationship ended, and all I could listen to was you guys for weeks_ confesses a girl with blue hair, or _When I hear you I’m less alone_ says a bespectacled beauty or _How do you get up every morning when everything around you is bleeding? I’m so scared. I want to be fearless like you. I want to be fearless._

            The more cities they go to, the more little rat kid fans there are. Some little rat kids have scars on their wrists and some wear their wounds hidden deep in their eyes. For some reason, they’re drawn to the band as if they aren’t also just fucked up kids trying to figure everything out. The only thing Frankie can really offer them is the truth. To look them in the eyes and be real with them for once in their lives. The world is fucked up and scary and there aren’t always answers. But the thing about the darkness is that, as isolating as it feels, no one’s ever truly alone down there.

            One night, while Frankie and Rae are tuning their guitars for the next song, Gina looks straight out into the crowd.

            “So… I’ve been spending a lot of nights talking to you guys. And I want to bring this up because I’ve been hearing it a lot. So you feel like an outcast,” she says. “You get depressed. I’m there with you. All of us up here are fuckin’ there with you, okay? The world’s a shitty place. You get desperate. But I don’t give a fuck how desperate, how depressed you are. You stay the fuck _alive,_ okay? You stay alive for me! Do you hear me?” By the end she’s shouting at the crowd and her voice doesn’t waver one bit. Gina Way, never backing down. The crowd screams in response, joy or anger or relief or terror Frankie doesn’t know, but when they launch into “Headfirst for Halos”, for once it sounds like an anthem rather than a suicide note.

***

            The next weeks pass in floods of laughter, drunken escapades, dance offs in Denny’s parking lots, busted streetlamps, _Back to the Future_ marathons, bongs shaped like dragons, crushed soda cans, set lists on takeout menus, Gina picking flowers for Bertha on the side of the highway, skate parties in abandoned swimming pools (and, similarly, a lot of scrapes and bruises); the days are showered in light filled Polaroids of gas stations, of crushed beer cans, of Frankie wearing only Michelle’s ripped blue tights trying to shake a hangover, of Gina giving herself pep talks in rest stop mirrors, of rats in the basements where they play their shows, of views from trees Frankie scales so she can see for miles and miles around and almost believes the world is still flat, of alleyway graffiti that says GOTH DAD WAS HERE, of Michelle and Rae squeezed together in one sleeping bag in someone’s backyard, of six hour car rides listening to the Runaways and Clive Barker books on tape. There are three van related incidents (a breakdown, an empty gas tank, and a minor Fender bender), twelve bruises on their collective legs, four house parties, two calls home, thee all nighters, and one totally awesome food fight. The days get longer and so does Frankie’s hair, from spiky stubble to a cleaner pixie cut that Frankie detests and vows to destroy as soon as she can. None of them have taken a proper shower in five days or eaten fresh food in six and their eyes are red and crusty, but as they stand on the roof of an old motel, listening to the early morning traffic and the sound effects from a kung fu movie they left on downstairs, watching the sun rise, Frankie has never felt more alive, more free.

            She jumps on top of a generator, towering over the town below.

            “I’m queen, motherfucker!” she shouts, stretching her arms out and whooping. Michelle flaps her arms above her head, laughing, at the exact same time Rae and Gina both shout different versions, “Get off that Frankie! You’re gonna hurt yourself.” Frankie does get down but only because she’s genuinely touched and impressed that they’re still making an effort to subdue her stupid decisions. This is, of course, because they never actually _do_ stop her from hurting herself/making a fool of herself/landing them in a situation with three angry cats, a backpack of fireworks, and Rae’s feisty abuela/all of the above.

            The rest of the band clambers on top of the generator with Frankie, wrapping their arms around each other, laughing and breathing in the yellow morning light.

            “When we’re rich and famous, I’m gonna buy Mom a big giant house like the ones up there on the hill,” Frankie says, gesturing her soda can to an outcropping of grand old farmhouses on the outskirts of the town.

            “Fuck, yeah that’s what I wanna do too,” Gina laughs. “Buy my ma all the shit she deserves and then die.” Gina has a habit of saying fucked up things but real flippantly so you’re never sure how concerned you should actually be. “You’re awful generous, Little Miss Broken Home,” she comments.

            “Shut up,” Frankie says, shoving her sideways. Gina laughs. “It’s fuckin’… complicated ‘n shit, okay? Like, sure, my mom wasn’t the best mom out there, wasn’t very cool about the whole music thing but she was better than my dad who just fucked off and didn’t really care what I did. Y’know, she was good. Worked double shifts at the post office so we could afford milk and stuff because you know my dad never payed child support.” The whole band is watching her with wary concern. “Oh be quiet you guys. We’re not a real punk band unless at least one of us has shitty family issues.” They still just sit there in a quiet, supportive, annoying way. Curse her stupid compassionate friends. “Seriously shut up. Talk about your favorite horror movies or something.”

            Gina lights up immediately. “Actually, I was reanalyzing my previous opinions on this matter! I used to immediately say _Suspiria_ because no one can beat that directing. I mean, the color coordination? And someone finally capitalized on how freaky witches can totally be. But then I realized that I was just in denial and that it’s actually _Carrie._ I mean, she was my total hero when I was sixteen.”

            “Please don’t ever tell that to anyone during an interview,” Michelle says.

            “No, but it’s totally true! Not like ‘woohoo let’s murder all my classmates due to lifelong repressed rage and humiliation’ but like… she did it for herself. She did it for herself and wasn’t afraid to be gross and ugly and scary. I wanna be like that.” The band stares onwards to the hills, the sun lapping the sides in its slow ascent. Without looking away, Frankie slips her hand in Gina’s and squeezes.

***

            After a show two days later, they speed through the empty suburban streets, sticky morning air whipping through the van’s open windows. Rae blasts an Andrew W.K. tape, and laughter bubbles up inside Frankie as she sees house lights flick on as their van soars down the streets at 5 am. A man shouts at them from a passing car, one of the few on the deserted roads. Michelle sticks her middle finger out the window and shouts, “Up your ass!” Rae honks the car horn for good measure. The wind whipping through the windows thuds like a bass line from a furious song in Frankie’s chest. She turns to Gina who is resting peacefully on the van, a bright smile raking through her whole body. She looks at Frankie, hints of a sunrise beginning behind her.

            “I’m so happy!” she shouts over the music, grabbing Frankie’s hands in giddiness. “I’ve never been so happy to be alive!” They press their foreheads together and for a second Frankie thinks they’re going to kiss, she’s sure of it, but at the last moment Gina leans back and lets out a delighted whoop, laughing. Frankie leans out the open window, closing her eyes. For a moment, she is sure that she’s flying. She lets out a cheer as well, lifting her arms above her head, and then she’s sure she really is flying.

            The band tumbles into the motel, past the bored man at the counter, through the narrow hallways, and into their room. They collapse on the queen sized bed in the motel, piled up like puppies, all drooping eyelids and sweaty limbs, but everyone’s too tired to care. She’s connected to everyone; Maddy’s side pressed against her back, feet by the top of the bed; Michelle lying on top of her legs, resting her head on the pillow of Gina’s thigh, and clinging to Rae who is somewhere below Frankie, falling off the bed and playing with the holes in the knees of Frankie’s jeans; and Gina, curled up next from her, their fingers tangling together like the chords from guitar to amplifier.

            The curtains are thin enough for Frankie to know that the sun will be up soon and the buses will take people to their cubicle jobs while she and her band sleep on before coming alive at night and rocking the world on its head, saving lives when the sun goes down. But in the pale morning light, coming down from the night’s high, Frankie just takes shuddering breaths, gazing into Gina’s eyes thinking, _Just kiss me already, please kiss me, please kiss me, kiss me kiss me kiss me damnit._ Gina shakes her hair out of her eyes and puts her palm against Frankie’s upper back, drawing their chests together.

            “Can you feel my heart beating? It’s gonna beat right out of my chest. I’m gonna get a bruise. I feel so alive right now,” she whispers. Frankie can see the clumps in Gina’s mascara they’re so close. She can see how Gina’s lips shudder on every exhale. They’re so close Frankie hears the song thrumming through Gina’s veins, black and red and tumbling and terrifying. They could’ve fucked all night long and Frankie wouldn’t have felt closer to her, like their flesh pressed together meant their souls were laughing over coffee in a far off world, a place where the only truth was their veins twining together.

***

Chapter 5

            As they drive deeper into the heart of the Midwest, the band gets caught up in a summer rainstorm. In a unanimous vote they officially ban Michelle from driving (not like she was that great of a driver to begin with) after she almost sends them careening off the side of the interstate and into a fucking bog. They don’t make it to the motel that night so they take turns driving through a rambling run down suburb while the others are curled up sleeping on the chapped naugahyde seats. The rain sloshes down the sides of the van, so deafening that Frankie can barely hear the mixtape Rae made (appropriately titled Stay The Fuck Awake.) Gina offered to drive because she’s got wicked insomnia but Frankie also knows that in the haze of her sleeplessness and general daydreamyness, Gina would probably run them into an apartment complex because she was thinking about ghosts or something. Exhausted, Frankie pulls the van into a trashed parking lot that’s empty except for a little shack with a flickering neon sign reading 24 Hour Donuts and Coffee.

            “Frankie, not to burst your bubble, but it’s way more likely that we’re going to find dead bodies in there than donuts and coffee!” Gina calls over the rain as they skitter towards their fluorescent destination. Gina holds her leather jacket over her head in the vain hope that it’ll protect her from the watery assault, but Frankie’s entirely given up, jumping and trying to catch the droplets in her mouth.

            “You’re insane!” Gina shouts, but Frankie can hear the smile in her voice. Then, a bit of the crumbling asphalt gives way under her feet and Frankie comes crashing to the ground.

            “Frankie?” Gina squeaks, her voice full of terror.

            “Augh, my _ass_ ,” Frankie groans. Gina, the freak, has sprinted over to Frankie, looking totally anxious.

            “Are you okay?” Gina asks, grabbing at random parts of Frankie’s person like they might reveal terrible, life-threatening wounds at any moment.

            “Yeah, I’m alright, I guess, just fell on my tailbone… shit,” Frankie says, making a show of trying to get up and wincing dramatically. Gina rubs Frankie’s bare shoulders. In the light of the single streetlamp, Gina has a halo behind her except instead of looking heavenly, with blacked out eye sockets, sharp cheekbones, and wet black locks of hair slithering down her forehead and neck, she looks ghoulish.

            “You look, like, seriously undead!” Frankie says. Gina’s face falls a bit, and then Frankie feels like an ass. It’s a problem that comes with never thinking before she says things or it never coming out right. “It’s really cool!” Frankie amends but Gina’s already lost to the dark place in her head. She clutches Frankie’s hand like a lifeline.

            “Sometimes… I don’t know if I’m real. I get these moments… or days. Not even when I’m drunk or _that_ drunk or anything. I wasn’t sure you were real when we first met. Like not that you’re figment-y or anything like if I had a figment it’d probably have fangs or something“ – Frankie inadvertently checks her mouth for large, exposed canines – “but I figured like. Okay remember when we watched _The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari_ ” (‘watching’ is a loose term, Frankie got blackout drunk in an attempt to actually understand the thing and Gina kept pausing it to ramble about expressionism) “We watched it and then I wasn’t sure if it was all just in my head because you’re so…” Gina trails off.

            “Okay, one. That’s fucking stupid. Two, ‘it’s all in your head’ is just a shitty overdone plot device because writer’s can’t own up to their own bullshit. Three, that is stupid.” Gina doesn’t look convinced though, so Frankie puts her chilly hand on Gina’s warm cheek. “Can you feel that?” Gina nods solemnly. “So now we’re both real,” Frankie says. She can see a smile peeking at the corners of Gina’s mouth. “Science,” Frankie says, nodding proudly. Gina giggles and takes Frankie’s hand in her own.

            “Let’s get donuts now,” she says. A few minutes later, they’re munching on sticky confectionaries, curled up together in the passenger’s seat. _To conserve heat_ , Frankie reminds herself because the van’s heater is shot and Gina’s just a touchy feely person sometimes but it’s easy to forget when Gina is running her sugar sticky fingers behind Frankie’s ears and in her hair. There’s no sense of time for Frankie that night (the clock on the dashboard has a long crack running through it and perpetually flashes 12:00 in a steady rhythm) other than the quick changes of cadence in Gina’s voice as she keeps them up by rambling on and on. She talks about her favorite movies – Italian splatter, B-horror flicks from the 70’s, trashy Brat Pack guilty pleasures – and books – surrealist short stories, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, _Song of Solomon, Flowers in the Attic,_ biographies of old rockstars and serial killers, weird lesbian erotica from the 60’s. Frankie listens with rapt attention. She supposes that at sixteen when she was sneaking out of her bedroom window to smoke pot on playgrounds and tag crumbling brick walls, Gina must have been shut in her basement, traveling to far off worlds and learning about anything and everything. It’s funny because at the time, teenage Frankie had thought she was experiencing the world, living life, but in this moment she feels about as un-worldly as possible.

            “It’s so cold,” Frankie whispers after a lull in the conversation, rubbing her hands together. She tugs at the end of Gina’s shirt, trying to wiggle her fingers under the hem. Gina shrieks.

            “Your hands are ice cold!” she says, pushing Frankie’s hands away.

            “C’mon _please_?” Frankie whines, poking at Gina.

            “Don’t touch my belly,” Gina giggles self-consciously.

            “What? It’s a very nice belly. And more importantly, very warm.” They scuffle for a bit, Frankie trying to stick her icicle fingers under Gina’s shirt and Gina squirming around, shrieking and laughing.

            “Will you two keep your awkward elaborate flirting ritual down please? Some of us are trying to get some sleep,” Michelle complains from the back seat. A crimson blush blooms on Gina’s cheekbones as she sits up, pulling down her shirt, which has ridden up to expose her pale soft stomach.

            “We should probably start driving again,” she says, using her head to indicate the driver’s seat reluctantly.

            “Oh yeah,” Frankie says. They stare at each other for a moment before Frankie realizes that she’s still sitting on top of Gina. “Oh right sorry, here,” she says as they fumble around each other until they’re both situated, Gina in the driver’s seat and Frankie riding shotgun. However, as they pull out of the parking lot, Gina reaches out and wraps Frankie’s fingers in her own.

            After driving in silence for a while, Frankie concludes it must be about morning. The rain is still coming down in torrents but the sky is maybe a shade lighter than it was before, the streets a little bit more full.

            “Franks, you ever been in love?” Gina asks.

            “Huh? Nah. I mean, I guess not.” Not until now whatever this is. “Have you?”

            “Yeah. I fall so easily. I fall all the damn time. The first woman I ever really loved, I met in college. Her name was Julie and she was like this… I was so awed by her. She was this sculptor in grad school and I was just this kinda strange undergrad studying fuckin’ comics, right? She basically taught me everything I know about sex and art. She was incredible. And she used to memorize poems right? All kinds, sonnets, Beat poems, modernism, whatever. We’d just lie in her bed for days on end, fucking and reading poems in between. I remember, I just remember this little snippet of one. It goes, ‘ _I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning/ How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me/ And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart._ ’”

            “That’s kind of fucked up,” Frankie says.

            “I always thought it was kind of sexy. Old poems can be sexy like that because everyone was so repressed, right? And just lusting after each other but keeping it all locked up inside so every brush of a hand or small look was like… euphoric.” Gina tears her eyes from the road to look at Frankie, suddenly broken from her reverie.

            “Yup, definitely fucked up,” Frankie says, but her head is spinning. What she said isn’t really what she feels, but right now she’s not quite sure what she feels. For all the times Frankie has heard songs about Gina’s ex-girlfriends, she hasn’t quite given it any real thought, but now the picture is so clear in her head of Gina sprawled naked on a large white bed, making love to some beautiful probably tall older woman who memorizes poems and _feels_ the way Gina feels, so deeply and so intensely, but damn her if she doesn’t because it’s like looking into a bright light in the dark; it hurts, but she has to _see_. “Do you… do you love Bertha?”

            Gina shrugs. “She’s easy to be with. She’s the kind of girl I deserve to be with. I don’t really think she loves anyone, though.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Dunno. She’s just kind of irreverent. I think she’s gonna leave me soon.”

            “Hey, that’s probably not true.”

            “The other day she asked me if I ever saw anyone get shot. Randomly. She thinks I’m full of shit.” She pushes her hair out of hair face, with some difficulty because it’s still wet and tangled. She twists the sodden locks in her fingers, not looking at Frankie. “She says, when someone gets shot for real, it’s not like in the movies. You don’t get last words and you don’t get to die in someone’s arms. Just one moment you’re alive and the next you shit your pants and your brains fall outta the back of your head and that’s it. That’s what Bertha said.”

            “What the fuck? How come she gets to say you’re full of shit just because she was a meth addict back when she was sixteen? It’s like… what the hell do you call that shit? Artistic license!” Gina smiles a bit at this.

            “She’s right though. I can be full of shit sometimes,” Gina says, rummaging around for something on the floor.

            “We’re all full of shit sometimes. You’re just more imaginative than most of us.” Gina returns triumphant with a half-smushed packet of cigarettes.

            “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t.” Gina quirks her mouth around the just lit cigarette. “I don’t mean that. I just wish I fucking understood myself at least some of the time.” The smoke dances above their heads.

            “Amen to that,” Frankie says, the first entirely truthful words to come out of her mouth the entire conversation. Guilt presses her shoulder blades and Frankie takes a chance. “I think I’m a little scared of being in love.”

            Gina glances at her, truly surprised for a second. “What’re you talking about? You’re Frankie. You’re fearless.”

            Frankie smiles quick but looks away from the other woman. “Not always,” is all she says. Gina squeezes her fingers lightly. And that’s it. Just a little pressure on three of Frankie’s fingers and the truth comes spilling from the ceiling like the torrential downpour outside. She would have never looked it head on in that moment, but if she had it would have been there clearer than anything else: Gina loved her too.

***

            In search of party supplies, the band went on a midnight Wal-Mart stop. They stumbled inside, singing David Bowie at the top of their lungs. This earned them several annoyed looks from the midnight shift workers who were probably hoping for a quiet night to binge play Legend of Zelda. As Frankie, Rae, and Maddy were getting promptly booted from the store for “disorderly conduct” Michelle was in a staring contest with the cashier as Gina loaded the conveyor belt with their tow: twelve cans of silly string, a handle of Smirnoff, a can of hairspray, three packs of cigarettes, a pile of the cheapest men’s flannel they could find (Frankie had run out of clean clothes three days prior and the band had had a moving send off as they abandoned half of her completely destroyed wardrobe by the side of the highway), a liter of Coke, leopard print leggings (Gina’s), dog food (for their host’s dog, Freaky George), kitchen scissors (for haircuts), a Destiny’s Child CD, Star Wars the Limited Edition Box Set, and a packet of peony seeds Rae was hoping to cultivate in the back of the van.

            Tonight’s after party is a bonfire on a beach by a calm black lake. From her position on a dock a ways down the beach, Frankie can make out the black forms of people against the red and orange glow of the fire. She dips her feet in the water, trying to clear her head.

            Frankie wishes she could turn her brain off. Navigating her mind is like being a spy creeping through a hallway, trying not to bump any red lasers that’ll activate an alarm and send a whole flood of feelings she doesn’t really understand through her body. Except she’s not a lithe and stealthy spy, more like the clumsy accomplice that shouldn’t really be there in the first place. Her heart hasn’t stopped beating like mad for days. She’s always in anticipation of the fall, the missed step on her way down the stairs, the drop after the peak of the rollercoaster. The anxiety over it all is like something that took a hold of her chest and hasn’t let go since.

            “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay,” she sings idly, sending ripples through the lake with her toes.

            Someone sits down next to her. She doesn’t have to look up to know that it’s Gina. The wind sings across the lake, just warm enough to remind them that it’s still summer, but the promise of a storm is still in the air. Frankie’s not even that drunk this time. Well, she’s drunk enough.

            When it happens, neither of them says anything. When it happens, neither of them are caught up in their own heads. When it happens, they just feel. Gina cradles Frankie’s face in her hands and kisses her, not gently but in a way that makes Frankie sigh in relief, like she hasn’t quite been able to breathe properly until now. Frankie grabs Gina’s wrists and kisses back with all that she’s worth. Gina just kisses her again and again, sweet but fervent, over and over until Frankie’s dizzy. She licks beyond the seam of Gina’s lips, pushing forward onto her knees until she’s leaning over Gina, reaching down into her soft black hair. Gina presses their bodies together and makes soft noises in the back of her throat, eagerly matching Frankie’s movements. Frankie finds herself unconsciously moving in waves, rising and falling to the pace of their heavy breath while Gina’s hands gently explore her body: the soft cotton of her t-shirt that covers the dip of her waist, the goose bump covered skin below her collarbone, the shy angles of her shoulders. With her thumb, Gina caresses the softness at the nape of Frankie’s neck and causes Frankie to gasp into Gina’s mouth, shivers running down her spine.

            It’s the first time they’ve really broken apart, and Gina’s gaze makes Frankie’s knees go weak as she guides her downwards until she’s lying on the dock, staring in awe at the night sky. Gina’s hot breath tickles her neck as she kisses and licks her way down, beneath Frankie’s ear, along her collarbones, and over her chest. Frankie’s only idle thought is how she’s going to be covered in lipstick before Gina’s giving her a questioning look and toying with the hem of Frankie’s t-shirt. Frankie nods and pulls it above her head. Immediately, Gina’s hands are exploring her exposed skin, and well, it’s too late now for Frankie to be really embarrassed about the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra today. She just arches into Gina’s touch and pulls her back up for more kisses. Gina bends over and licks one of Frankie’s breasts experimentally, before sucking gently, her fingers ghosting along the curve of Frankie’s stomach. Her fingers dig into Gina’s shoulders as she gasps at the electric feeling curling inside of her.

            For all the times that words have failed Frankie, this is the moment she has been yearning for, to somehow make Gina feel what she’s feeling. The wind is picking up and, as they’re kissing and stroking each other, she’s afraid that a bit of her might blow away and be lost to the currents of the glittering black lake. Gina is the only solid thing in her world, the warm push of her breasts against her own, the delicate skin of her throat, and the twist of her tongue in Frankie’s mouth. Pressing a kiss into the hollow of Gina’s throat, Frankie hesitates with her fingers on the buttons of Gina’s dress. Like Frankie, she nods, her eyes squeezed shut in an expression somewhere between pain and ecstasy. With every pearl button she undoes, Frankie presses a kiss on the skin exposed: first her chest, in between her breasts, the nook where her ribcage falls off, the soft skin of her belly. Gently, Frankie presses Gina backwards onto the grainy dock. After slipping the dress off Gina’s shoulders and tossing it into a pile wit Frankie’s t-shirt, Frankie just has to take a moment to stare at every curve, every twist of her body. Gina turns her head away in embarrassment, but with two fingers, Frankie guides Gina’s eyes to hers. For a moment she thinks Gina’s going to walk, slip her dress back on and leave, but instead she presses a gentle kiss to Frankie’s lips and leans back again, a soft sigh escaping her lips.

            Caught up in some desire to drown herself in the other woman, Frankie presses both hands to Gina’s ears. Satisfied that she won’t hear a word from her mouth and praying to whatever that Gina can’t read lips, Frankie whispers, “I love you.” Gina just kisses her more and guides Frankie’s hands over her chest and her hips. Somewhere caught between her teeth is the desire to say something like “I like your tits” or “We are co-pilots in a crashing plane and I have no desire to pull up and out of this shitty metaphor”, but she hardly has enough breath just to fill her lungs, both of them totally unwilling to break apart for more than a second.

            Her fingers are wound around Gina’s back, ready to unclasp her bra when a voice from the beach pierces the silence.

            “Oi, Frankie, get your scrawny ass over here! You’ve got to see this!”

            They both pause. Frankie sighs. She pulls on her t-shirt and holds up her finger, in an effort to communicate, “I’ll just be a minute”. Of course, she’s not actually a minute because she get sucked into an elaborate charades-like game Michelle and Maddy came up with after drinking half a bottle of kahlua, and, despite the fact that Frankie totally kicks ass at the game and her team wins, she would’ve much rather been on the cold, dirty dock making out half naked with the woman she’s been in love with for months. She tries to return to the dock a while later, but she spots Gina drinking beer with Bertha and another member of The Used not that far off. Frankie plops down on the sand. Their host’s dog trots over and curls up next to her.

            “What the fuck just happened, Freaky George?” she asks, scratching his head.

            “Uhh,” the dog groans in response, and Frankie thoroughly agrees.

***

            Frankie doesn’t really know how to play music like a normal person. The day she got out of her room and saw regular people playing music, she was baffled. They didn’t thrash around. Their hearts didn’t beat any faster. There was no electrical charge. She knows because she touched them all, waiting for the shock, but it never came. To her, guitars were big fat lightening bolts.

            She eventually figured it out, that electrical energy, to harness it. And, when it’s a really good song, she can channel it. Gina once described it as, “when the music goes pew pew pew pew”. Rae, more eloquently, calls it “a release”. All the built up tension in a song and, if you can capture it right, that exact moment when everything explodes in black and blue euphoria.

            For a while, Frankie thought that their music didn’t really have a release. Not that they weren’t good. But it turns out they were just different. The release wasn’t in the music or the band. It was in the audience. It was the little rat people who shuffle around the country just waiting for the Saturday nights when they can cram into holes in the ground to sweat over cheap beer and listen to bands who sound like themselves.

            “Music is like sex,” Frankie says.

            “Pizza is like sex,” Gina replies idly, trying to rescue a glob of cheese from falling off her slice.

            “I haven’t had sex in forever,” Rae sighs.

            “Our music would be a really good lay,” Frankie says.

            “Would it?” Michelle replies, genuinely thoughtful.

            “Yup. It’d get you off twice before getting anything in return,” Frankie reasons.

            “Hate to break it to you, but our music is not very sexy,” Maddy says.

            “Gina’s sexy,” Rae giggles. In response, Gina’s cheeks turn pink and she mumbles something along the lines of “shut up.” Frankie grins at her hands.

            “The kids are _all over_ you,” Rae insists. “I bet Bertha would agree with me.”

            Gina looks downward, poking at her pizza slightly.

            “Did… did something happen with Bertha?” Michelle asks kindly after a moment of awkward silence.

            “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal or anything. I’m fine,” Gina says. She doesn’t really look fine, but Frankie has been careful about what she says Gina ever since the night on the dock. The next morning she had breakfast with Brian and told him about the whole thing, dishing out all the gory details with excitement. He, in usual buzz kill manager fashion, brought her back to Earth.

            “Just give her some space, okay? We all know Gina’s a drama queen,” he said.

            Right before the show that night in the last week of the tour, Frankie takes Gina aside.

            “Wanna talk later?” she asks. Gina’s face is pallid and she doesn’t even need the makeup tonight to make herself look really dead. She rubs her eyes like she’s trying to bring herself back to reality, like right now she’s not all here.

            “Sorry, Franks, I’m really sorry. I’m switching my meds, and my body’s freaking out. Everything’s kind of spinning. I just need to crash,” she says, resting her head against the wall, eyelids drooping.

            They don’t go out to meet fans that night, just play their set, Frankie for once being careful not to go too hard. She tries to talk to Gina a few more times in that last stretch of the tour, but it’s suddenly like the Way sisters are attached at the hip. Huddled together in the backseat of the van watching _Bladerunner_ on Michelle’s portable DVD player, sharing a giant slushy from 7-11, talking with their heads pressed together backstage. Frankie can’t find a moment in to be with Gina alone.

            On the last motel night, Frankie shares a room with Rae and Maddy. They splurged their leftover money on rooms so that everyone, even the handful of roadies, gets their own beads. It’s a huge relief after almost a month of practically living on top of her other band members. She rolls around on the pea green covers and jumps around on the bed too, just for good measure.

            Rae sweeps in the room, a big smile on her face.

            “Where’ve you been?” Maddy asks due to the fact that they haven’t seen her since last night where she disappeared after their show.

            “Oh, I was just out with this guy I met at last night’s show. We went back to his apartment and, we got caught up in a really intense game of Scrabble.”

            “Is that a euphemism?” Maddy asks Frankie.

            “Sadly, no,” Frankie responds as Rae flops contentedly onto her bed. They pester Rae, all invasive questions and waggling eyebrows, and it feels nice to not have to worry for a while, no fake blood and mixed signals, just a group of twenty-something loser girls shooting the shit. For all the times Frankie’s worried that she’s not living life to the fullest, she realizes this is just as good, just drinking soda and talking with her best friends about crushes. _I used to be so young before this band,_ Frankie thinks.

            Eventually, it’s just Rae and Frankie awake, trying to toss cheese balls into each other’s mouth.

            “Are they always like this?” Frankie asks.

            “Who?”

            “Michelle and Gina. They’ve got the whole telepathic Siamese twin thing going on right now. Minus the Siamese part. And the twin part.”

            “I don’t know. They’ve always been close. I don’t think they really had friends as kids” – Frankie snorts at this because, really, who did? – “so they ended up being really close.” Frankie effectively catches a cheese ball with her tongue.

            “Well, like, yeah, I know that they’re close. But do they ever tell anyone else anything?” The cheese ball bops Rae’s nose and falls on the bed where she picks it up and eats it anyways.

            “Franks, they’re the Way sisters. They’re private.”

            “Overstatement of the century. Gina is an ex-hermit or something and Michelle has shown emotion, like, twice in her lifetime.”

            Rae pauses before lobbing the next cheese ball. “You still hung up on Gina?”

            “Throw the damn cheese ball,” Frankie says, turning a slight shade of pink.

            “Oh my God, what did you do?”

            “Hardly nothing. We didn’t even fuck, just made out some.” Rae throws a handful of cheese balls at her. “Hey! What was that for?”

            “Frankie! You can’t play with someone’s emotions like that.”

            “Me? She’s the one that’s been sending me mixed signals. First she’s all about the music and I’m just her band mate. And then she’s snuggling up next to me all, ‘Frankie have you ever been in love?’ And then she barely talks to me for days! Like, I know it’s stupid and high school. Whatever. But it’s not just a pent up sex thing.”

            Rae chews a cheese ball thoughtfully. She tosses one idly to Frankie who catches it. She licks the orange powder from her fingers. “Well…” she says slowly. “I would advise maybe not giving up on her so fast.”

            “Rae, what do you know that I don’t know?”

            “Nothing.” She’s a shit liar. “Seriously, nothing.” Rae throws a cheese ball at Frankie’s face in a devious attempt to distract her, but Frankie is far more cunning than her band mate presumes. Rae sighs. “This is really high school, or whatever high school would be like if I actually dated anyone. Okay. Frankie, you are really stupid. Gina is also really stupid. Clearly you two are meant for each other.” Frankie flips her off. “Just give it a little time.” Frankie gives her an imploring look, but Rae just makes a zipping-my-lips motion. Frankie flops back on her bed and groans.

***

            The storm reaches Belleville, New Jersey a few days after they return from the tour causing a power line to collapse two blocks from Linda Iero’s house. The entire neighborhood loses all electricity that night. Frankie, cooped up in her old childhood bedroom, sets up a haphazard array of a few candles and flashlights, bathing the room in a deep orange glow. She tries to tinker around with old lyrics and melodies she’s scribbled on loose-leaf paper and napkins over the course of the tour, but the rain pounding the thin roof is so loud she can barely hear the chords she’s playing. Everything’s stuck tonight, and she’s about to give up when she hears a small _tink_. She scans the room for the source of the noise, but sees nothing. She even checks under the bed to make sure they don’t have mice again, but it’s clear, just a few old socks and flyers for shows long past. _Tink._ Frankie frowns. She stands perfectly still, waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Just as she picks up her acoustic guitar, certain that she’s just hearing things, something crashes outside her window.

            “Shit,” Gina says, appearing soaking wet on Frankie’s fire escape. “I fell.” Frankie rushes to the window and yanks it open. “Hi Franks. Did you know that it’s raining?”

            “What the fuck, Gina?” she says as she helps the other woman clamber through the window, dripping water all over the floor, which almost makes her slip again, but Frankie steadies her. “Holy shit, you’re not even wearing a jacket. You must be freezing! Hang on.” After rummaging through the closet for a while, secretly cursing the fact that she is so small, Frankie extracts her largest, comfiest hoodie (most likely stole from her ex-band mate Hambone) and hands it to Gina.

            “Sorry, we’re not exactly the same size,” she apologizes. Gina is visibly shivering as she carefully strips off her dress and flops it on the windowsill. Just a few seconds too late, Frankie averts her eyes, busying herself with blankets from the bottom of the dresser. Gina clears her throat, abashed in just Frankie’s hoodie and torn black tights. She squeezes the water out of her hair before wrapping herself up in the blanket.

            “What the hell?” Frankie says.

            “Huh?” asks Gina

            “You just climbed through my window, you freak.”

            “Oh yeah. I woke up and I didn’t know where I was,” Gina says.

            “… you woke up on my fire escape?”

            “No I woke up in my basement and I sorta thought that maybe it was three years ago for a while. But then I realized that it really wasn’t. And I had to see you.” She grabs at Frankie’s hand, all fervently and like maybe she’s not really aware of what she’s doing. “But then I didn’t know where you were and Michelle was asleep and Rae wasn’t answering her phone, so I went to Geoff’s house but you weren’t there. And then I went to Brian’s but you weren’t there either. And then I went to Auntie’s and Jill, you know Jill the lady that lives on the bench right outside, she wasn’t there, but she’s always there. And I didn’t know why she wasn’t there. I was so scared that you might just vanish like that, even though that’s a stupid thought now, but right then I was really scared. You know, people vanish every day and there’s no one to miss them at all. I thought a lot about being Gone and where Gone was right then because I was walking all over town. I know that’s stupid too but I think I hoped I might see you if I just wandered around. But then I ran into some of your friends that you used to squat with, John Something and a girl named Naomi I think, and they said you might be here. I threw rocks at your window, but I don’t think you heard.” Gina hasn’t stopped shaking the whole time she’s been talking. She pulls the blanket closer around her shoulders and doesn’t quite look Frankie in the eyes, even though she’s still loosely holding her hand.

            “I heard,” Frankie says.

            “What?”

            “I heard the rocks but I thought they were mice. Who the fuck just shows up throwing rocks at someone’s window anyways?”

            “I needed to talk to you,” Gina repeats.

            “Talk to me about what?” Frankie asks, and even though she’s trying so hard, her voice shakes a little. She has a lump in her throat, the hopeful kind.

            Gina paces to the other side of the room, dropping Frankie’s hand and pulling at her damp hair. Every time she starts to say something, she cringes at her words and starts over. “Frankie. I just. I don’t know how to. You know I was once robbed at gunpoint? And alcoholism runs in my family. Michelle and I always pretended to be sick before family reunions because of it, but then we got older and it got cool because it meant free alcohol. You know? And – “

            “Gina.” Frankie walks over to her. Gina looks straight down at her shoes, almost like she’s ashamed, and Frankie’s too nervous to touch her but, by God, she wants to, she’s burning to touch her. “Gina,” she says again, softer. The woman across from her peeks up through her hair fallen in her face. Frankie says her name again, just because she can, just because she forgot everything she was going to say when she looked at Gina’s eyes, full of a look caught somewhere between the deer in the headlights and the driver that knows it’s too late. At the sound of her own name, Gina closes her eyes for a moment. Her chest swells like an overripe flower in bloom. “It’s okay. You’re here. You’re right here.”

            “Sorry I ignored you,” she says, playing with the string on Hambone’s maybe hoodie. “I sorta do this thing where I ignore everyone who loves me or I piss them off or I make them really sad and it’s an accident. It’s an accident. I never mean to… but I always do.” Gina steps backwards, brushing her hands over the scattered artifacts on Frankie’s desk as she’s talking. She picks up random objects. A pink guitar pick. A tube of mascara. A pencil stamped with a slogan warning her that drugs are not cool.

            “You didn’t piss me off. Or make me sad. I’m right here too,” Frankie says, staring at a run in Gina’s tights, slithering up the curve of her calf and tearing itself into a wide hole by the knee, the strands holding the nylon together decorated with dirt and dried blood.

            “Bertha says I’m brave.”

            “You are,” Frankie says immediately. Gina shrugs and mumbles something. “What?”

            “I should’ve asked you to stay. On the dock,” she says, turning around to face Frankie. Before Frankie can say anything, jump her bones, tear those ruined tights off her, Gina looks up and smiles. “Was this your bedroom when you were a teen?”

            Frankie wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. You’ll never find the school photos though. They are in a locked away never to be found ever.” She makes a mental note to put a padlock on the plastic box filled with photos of her life years twelve to eighteen.

            Gina laughs a little. “Where’d you stash your weed?”

            Frankie nods her head towards a stack of books. “I cut out a secret compartment in this giant copy of _Crime and Punishment_ my dad gave me once.

            Gina smiles wide this time, shaking her head. “You’re too good for me,” she says.

            Frankie nods her head slightly, beckoning to Gina. “Come on, dry off and get warm.”

            The two of them fall on the bed. Frankie picks up her guitar and composes a little tune she titles “Not Getting Hypothermia With Gina Way” which makes Gina laugh her big honking laugh, and she shoves Frankie sideways. She rubs her hair with an old towel that was abandoned on the floor. With damp strands of hair flying every which way and smudged eyeliner, half dressed on Frankie’s bed, she has never been more beautiful. She leans backwards like she might be leaning into the gaping maw of a cliff and comes crashing horizontally onto Frankie’s bed. Frankie cackles and shoves her off the bed, changing the song to “Being a Big Fucking Idiot With Gina Way”. After climbing back up, they sit together at the eye of the storm, the exquisite calmness with only the soft vibrations of steel strings against frets and the warm rise and fall of Gina’s breath. Gina’s gaze shyly finds its way to Frankie, rests its chin on her shoulder, trying to understand a woman who can look at her and see something more than a coward. Frankie keeps her eyes trained down.

            Frankie sets down her guitar, which suddenly seems gratuitous in her arms. “So…uh, you know that I love you, right? I’m in… love with you,” she says, feeling like she might puke up her own heart onto the worn green bed sheets.

            “Yeah,” Gina says, more an exhale than an actual word.

            “Oh. Cool. And, uh, do you love… me?” Biting her lip until it turns white.

            “Yeah,” Gina answers before Frankie’s even finished saying her last word. Hands toying with the hem of the hoodie like they’re caught in no man’s land.

            “Cool,” Frankie says, louder than she means to. “Cool.” Head spinning, white hot fire in her veins. “So… why aren’t we giving each other mind blowing multiple orgasms right now?”

            Gina sits up, stares at Frankie’s fingers. Frankie slides them gently across her own thigh. Gina’s eyes widen.

            “I think… I think I was a little scared,” she says, leaning towards Frankie slowly. Her fingers join Frankie’s on her thigh, the smallest bit on contact, skin on skin. “And… I didn’t think that I deserved your love. Or any love.”

“And now?”

            They’re inches away from each other, shaky exhales thunderous in each other’s ears. The orange light of the candles drips down Gina’s shoulders as Frankie unzips the hoodie, finger twisting a spider web of chills down Gina’s arm. She presses a kiss to Gina’s shoulder, the crook of her neck, the underside of her jaw. Gina meets her mouth, reaching her arms around Frankie and letting out a mix between a moan and a sigh of relief. She kisses the corner of Frankie’s mouth, the rise of her cheekbone, the slope of her pale neck. She bites down, ever so lightly, causing Frankie to jump slightly and squeak, though hardly out of discomfort. They spend what seems like forever just like that, touching, playing, and kissing. Gina pets the nape of Frankie’s neck with the back of her fingers, delighting in the rush of adrenaline in both of their bloodstreams. Frankie sucks on Gina’s lower lip, intoxicated by the feeling of her skin against her own.

            Frankie puts her hand on the zipper of Gina’s hoodie. “Can I take this off?” she whispers, kissing and licking at her neck.

            “Yes,” Gina whispers and presses into Frankie’s hands when the fabric is pushed off of her body and her bra unclasped, revealing the soft skin beneath. Frankie lets herself forget everything that isn’t Gina, her skin, her breasts, the soft roll of her stomach, the slide of her lips, their tongues tangling together. She kind of expects Gina to be her usual self-conscious self, but a newfound confidence seems to have taken over her as Gina wraps her legs around Frankie’s waist and leans back, inviting Frankie in to kiss her chest and suck on her tits. Or maybe this is just how Gina is in bed, a side to her that Frankie’s never seen before.

            Frankie pulls off her own shirt. Immediately, Gina sinks her fingers into the flesh of her waist and her teeth into her neck. Frankie’s breath catches and she moans softly, pulling Gina in for more. Pressing kisses downwards – on the hollow of her throat, in between her breasts, the notch of her ribs, her bellybutton – Gina slides her hands downwards, over Frankie’s thighs. Gina’s all detail, caught up in the texture of her skin in one spot, the sounds when she makes when she bites down just so, but Frankie’s all movement, rocking her body against the other woman’s. Her sweatpants come off easily but they struggle a little with Gina’s ruined tights, twisting and giggling before discarding them off the bed.

            Frankie guides Gina backwards until she’s straddling her thick thighs, still totally enamored with Gina’s breasts, her nipples hard between Frankie’s fingers. She replaces her fingers with her mouth, causing Gina to let out a deep moan. Gina takes Frankie’s vacant hand and guides it in between her legs. It doesn’t take much more than that for Frankie to get the message. She slides her hand over Gina’s lacy black underwear and spreads her legs open wider and wider.

            “Can I take these off?” Frankie asks again, pulling at Gina’s underwear.

            “Yes _please_ ,” Gina says, covering her eyes with her fingers but grinning widely. Frankie loves the sound of Gina’s voice asking please, especially with her fingers between her legs.

            Off the underwear comes and with that everything snaps into place. Frankie stops thinking and starts doing. She slides down Gina’s body until she’s right where she wants to be, head buried between her legs. She takes a moment to spread the folds of Gina’s pussy, rubbing her thumb over her clit gently. Gina sighs. Frankie kisses the inside of her thigh, going over the spaces with her tongue until Gina whispers her name and Frankie remembers her task at hand. She licks a long stripe along Gina’s pussy, feeling Gina’s hands tense around her shoulders at the first touch. Then Frankie circles Gina’s clit with her tongue playfully before diving in more deeply, licking hot wet stripes along her pussy and clit. Gina’s breathing gets heavier and faster as she starts to squirm. The more Frankie licks at plays with her, the more she can feel Gina fighting to stay still, legs trembling beneath her hands. If Frankie looks up at her, Gina’s staring down at her, her pupils blown and filled with this deep, desperate desire. Just her eyes make Frankie feel weak in the knees, so she just licks her harder and faster building it up until Gina can’t contain her moans. They’re high and needy, like it’s more than she can take.

            “Oh my God,” Gina moans when Frankie dips a finger inside of her. “Don’t stop,” she whispers, biting down her on lip to keep in more moans. One hand is wrapped in her own hair, the other trailing down her belly and breasts. Frankie goes faster and faster, loving the sight of the other woman writhing and moaning beneath her. Gina’s head is thrown back in ecstasy, and Frankie can feel that same desire wound up in her belly. The feeling makes her sink her fingers into Gina’s thighs, holding her in place as she rocks and squirms beneath her. The room is so hot and the sounds that Gina’s making are driving up the wall. She slides another finger inside of Gina, feeling her push into them.

            “Please, don’t stop,” Gina says. “Don’t stop, don’t – “ and then she’s coming around Frankie’s fingers, her legs trembling with pleasure, but Frankie still doesn’t stop, just keeps licking and sucking her through it all.

            Frankie peeks up, almost shyly from between Gina’s legs. Gina pulls her up and kisses her, fast and wet. They pull apart slowly, Gina stroking the side of Frankie’s face adoringly. Their foreheads are pressed together, smiling small smiles because in the silent in between moments everything is okay.

            Then Gina is flipping Frankie on her back and mapping her skin with her fingers and tongue.

            “Holy shit, where’d you learn that?” Frankie gasps, disoriented from her sudden change in position.

            “Art school,” Gina says distractedly into her neck. Frankie rolls back on top of her, straddling one of her thighs and grinding down. She hums in pleasure and does it again. Gina runs her fingers down the length of her torso, causing little goose bumps to appear. All in one movement, she tries to roll them over again but seriously misjudges the width of the bed, and they go toppling down to the floor.

            “Shit!” she yelps, giggling with Frankie.

            “Shh!” Frankie says, silencing Gina with her mouth. “My mom’s home.”

            “God, this is just what high school would’ve been like if I were actually getting laid,” Gina says.

            Frankie laughs and shoves her a little bit. “Shut the fuck up,” she giggles.

            “Make me,” Gina says, challenging just a little. So Frankie does what anyone else would do and sits on Gina’s face.

            “Is this okay?” she whispers, trailing a finger down Gina’s cheek. In response, Gina licks a thick stripe over Frankie’s pussy, hands cupping her ass and drawing her in.

            “God, I fucking love you,” she says and delves right in. Frankie wraps her fingers in Gina’s long hair, gently fucking her face as Gina’s tongue works around her clit. It’s unbearably good almost immediately, causing her to pant and whine. Her thighs begin to tremble with the feeling, but Gina’ just holds her in place. She steadies herself against the wall and bites her lip so as not to make too much noise. Gina runs her fingers down the curve of Frankie’s spine so Frankie gasps out, “Don’t stop. Please Gina, don’t stop.” She rocks against Gina’s tongue on her pussy, feeling warmth and pleasure roll through her. Her face is screwed up as she gasps out Gina’s name, and she can’t help grinding down onto Gina. A hot, heavy feeling builds in the bit of her stomach, almost too much for her to bear. Gina just licks her faster and deeper, dragging her fingernails down Frankie’s back and thighs. Frankie buries her fingers in her own hair, leaning backwards so Gina can slide her tongue along her pussy, teasing her clit.

            “Shit!” she pants as she comes, trembling as her orgasm rolls through her, so the only thing she can think about for a moment is Gina, everywhere. She rolls off of Gina’s face and pulls her back on her bed. They touch and explore their sweat slick skin, finding where they fit together. The rain keeps falling outside the window.

            Later when they’re sitting in Frankie’s bathtub, pouring handfuls of water over each other’s hair and exchanging soft kisses, Gina says, “I’m kind of scared to be happy.”

            Frankie combs her hair back with her fingers and strokes her neck. “That’s okay. We all are sometimes.” They kiss again, not caring about the dead cockroach in the corner or the cracks in the linoleum or the water that was never hot enough to begin with, only touching each other like there is nothing more precious than to be able to hold someone and see them exactly as they are.


End file.
